Offshore staff
ABERDEEN, UK — Unite the Union has announced new dates for strike action on facilities in the UK North Sea operated by Petrofac on behalf of Repsol Sinopec Resources.
Strikes on Dec. 8 and 9 replace previously planned stoppages on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1.
The dispute with Petrofac involves about 146 of the union’s members and relates to the latter’s removal of a 10% Equal Time payment, Unite said, along with a below inflationary pay offer and other measures.
And a Petrofac/bp industrial action ballot has returned a result of 98.3% of Unite members favoring industrial action. This will take place on the same dates, Dec. 8 and 9, on bp’s Andrew, Clair, Clair Ridge, ETAP and Glen Lyon offshore installations.
This dispute centers on the working rotation, currently three days on and three days off.
Unite said employees of Petrofac across the bp assets were forced into an equal time three weeks on/three off working pattern when the oil price tumbled in 2015. That led to an overall increase in average weekly working hours that the union claims were outside the maximum defined in the Working Time Directive, which its members were then told to waive to keep their jobs, the union added.
11.28.2022
