Stop attacking workers

Among the few winners in yesterday’s budget was the North Sea oil industry, which was handed over a £1.3bn tax cut to combat a slump in oil prices.

 
The industry responded to the initial New Year slump, which saw the global price of crude plummet to below $50 a barrel, by attacking workers’ pay and conditions, following a strategic failure to plan for the drop in prices.

 
Now, the new tax cut might spell hope for the 375,000 oil workers employed by the industry in the North Sea—if that is, opportunistic firms end their race to the bottom.

 
Unite Scottish secretary Pat Rafferty argued that the tax cut must signal an end to the industry’s short-sighted race for immediate profits at the cost of long-term, sustainable investment in drilling, exploration and their most important resource—the workforce.

 
“George Osborne has delivered an eye-watering £1.3bn, no strings tax cut for an industry already worth billions,” he said.

 
“We are clear that economic reform of the North Sea must go hand-in-hand with sustaining jobs and strengthening employment and workplace health safety rights.

 
“What we cannot contemplate is a de-regulated future for the North Sea – a race to the bottom on jobs and standards where workers will have to work longer for less.”

 
Indeed, as the Guardian reported yesterday, rig workers across the industry have already been asked to work more hours for the same rate of pay. One group of workers the Guardian spoke to said that they were told that from September, they would have to work an extra week—three weeks on the rig and two weeks off—for the same pay, replacing the current two weeks on and two weeks off arrangement.

 
While an RMT regional organiser told the Guardian he fears the tax cut would only mean a “bundle of cash in big oil shareholders’ pockets,” Rafferty argued Osborne’s giveaway provides an opportunity to “challenge” the industry.

 
“Our challenge to the industry is this: You have got what you asked for so stop attacking your workers livelihoods and working conditions,” he said.

 
“With their morale at rock-bottom, the workforce needs this confirmed immediately.”

 
A consultative ballot of Unite’s membership in the Offshore Contractors Association (OCA) is currently taking place and will run until Friday, March 27.