Long-standing UK North Sea trade union leader, Jake Molloy of the RMT, is warning bosses against sacrificing the workforce or compromising safety in their re-found zeal to slash costs in the face of collapsed oil prices coupled with a fiscal regime judged unfit for purpose.
He accuses managers of not learning from the past, being short-sighted, of destroying hard-won trust among the workforce and warns that offshore safety will be compromised.
Not only that, such actions will cost the industry dear in financial terms.
“We are being told the industry is not in crisis, we just need to work together to prepare ourselves for the future,” says Molloy in a letter to members, some of whom have probably already been fired.
“Industry says the only way we can continue to produce is by forcing workers to move from current shift patterns of 2:2 (two weeks on : two weeks off) or the more favourable 2:3 and instead work extended shift patterns of 3:3.
“Not only that; in some cases you will be forced to sacrifice any paid leave you may have!”
But Molloy warns that the three on : three off drive will only affect those who remain in work during this “non-crisis”, mostly those involved on production installations in maintenance and engineering.
“This is down to the fact there is another approach being adopted by industry, mass redundancy, with drilling activity being slashed across the sector and thousands of drilling workers being dumped.
“This is despite being told by industry only a few short months ago that we had a skills shortage!
“Any sense of engagement which is vital to improving behaviours and attitudes and in turn safety performance will be destroyed, as the operators drive through these ‘slash and burn’ measures.
“A negative impact on safety performance will inevitably have a detrimental impact on production performance.
“Costs will increase as operations suffer, and moreover the human cost in terms of accidents, injuries and fatalities, will cause untold grief for those affected and their families, as well as seriously damaging the reputation of operators.
“We can confidently make these claims because we’ve been here before. We’ve seen the result of the ‘slash and burn’ approach in years gone by where the fatality rate, serious injury rate, and hydrocarbon release rate have all increased as a consequence of short-sighted cost cutting.”
Focusing on the drive for production efficiency, Molloy defends pay awards to rank and file workers, saying that pay has largely been in line with inflation or only slightly above.
Molloy insists that the fat-cats are senior people, consultants, engineers and others along with inflated bonuses aimed at retaining these high-end earners.
“Indeed, the industry has created this environment where they are paying well above the odds and picking from the same group, rather than investing in new people and keeping costs under control.
“In short, industry leaders have failed to manage this and have taken the easy option of throwing money at people while oil prices were high, and now – the offshore workforce is being asked to pay for that management failure.”
Molloy insists too that production efficiency has dropped off because of a failure to invest in plant and equipment, as the drive to produce oil while the price was high became the imperative.
As a consequence of this approach workers have witnessed the widespread use of “Operational Risk Assessments” (ORAs) to maintain production while systems fail, generating extensive backlogs in maintenance.
When eventually forced to shut down to deal with an ever increasing catalogue of faults and repairs, the period of non-production has inevitably been longer and so production efficiency has suffered.
Molloy: “The workforce haven’t failed in this respect, they have been spectators watching this sorry tail unfold. Indeed, only a few months ago, the Step Change Elected Safety Reps group told industry leaders there was a continuing conflict between safety and production and that too many jobs were either not being done or were never completed.”
He said too that workers and their unions had got behind industry bosses, hoping that the idea of working collaboratively in a tripartite approach would succeed. In short, workers had chosen to trust, even supporting the new super-regulator.
Today, Molloy senses betrayal; workers being hung out to dry.
He refers to a letter issued to employees of Bilfinger Salamis working 2:2 and 2:3 shift rotations for Marathon Oil in the Brae fields complex. In a nutshell, Marathon is dictating that offshore workers will be obliged to shift to a 21 days on : 21 days off shift pattern.
The letter says: “We have also been required to review the practice of those who work offshore taking holidays during periods of offshore working, rather than field break.
“Marathon have advised that in order to maintain efficiencies on their Brae Field assets employees will be required to work annual offshore rotation each year, meaning that holidays would require to be taken during field break only.”
Molloy: “Bilfinger Salamis are calling this ‘consultation’, but it is clear this is a done deal! Marathon are dictating what will happen and it’s the exact same ‘done deal’ as Apache have applied to all contractors and staff on the Forties and Beryl Fields, 3:3 from April/May, like it or not!
“So much for the ‘new era’ of a tripartite approach and collaborative working! The industry has very quickly reverted to its old ways and are driving the changes through irrespective of any concerns about extended working hours with increased workloads and the impact of this on workers’ health and safety and the safety of operations.
“Not only this, they are telling concerned workers that the HSE have no issues with these changes, despite the existence of an HSE commissioned survey from 2010 which seriously questions the adoption of 3:3 shift patterns.
“And finally they are increasing working hours and workloads by reducing staff numbers, when extensive backlogs of maintenance already exist!”
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