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26 October, 2010
The ICEM World Energy Conference, meeting in Stavanger, Norway on 6-7 September 2010, is deeply disturbed by the extraordinarily high number of workplace deaths and injuries in recent months, in both upstream and downstream oil and gas industries. It must be remembered that these are workers who died producing profits for corporations that failed to provide safe working conditions.
Specifically, the ICEM notes a rash of explosions and fires in US oil refineries, including the tragic refinery explosion of the Tesoro company at the Anacortes, Washington, refinery that killed seven dedicated union members in April 2010. The ICEM grieves the death of a Petrobras worker at an onshore oils filed in the state of Bahia in May. Much has rightly been made of the environmental destruction along the United States Gulf coast brought about by the BP-operated oil rig explosion and blow-out in the gulf of Mexico earlier this year. After the initial news, however, the fact that 11 offshore workers died and 15 others were severely injured has been largely ignored. These are examples only. ICEM also recognizes that there have been many further workplace deaths in the oil and gas and other sectors.
This deterioration in safety and health conditions is attributable, the Conference believes, to the rush by corporations to maximize profits by corporations in the wake of the financial crisis, and a general disregard for best practises in safety and health. Indeed, many oil and gas companies, rather than create or re-create decent jobs as the economy recovers, have instead made a hazardous industry more hazardous by expanding the utilization of contract workers, combining existing jobs, and decreasing direct employment. Thiss situation is made worse by the non-regulation, deregulationn and non-enforcement of safety and environmental regulations by many governments.
The ICEM calls on the industry to engage the legitimate workers' representatives in implementing proper procedures and best practises such as Process Safety Management and Joint Union-Management Health and Safety Committees to remedy the inherent risks in these industries.
ICEM insists that trade unions be fully involved in all design, safety methodology and implementation of safety equipment, as well as fully involved in investigative work following accidents or malfunctions.
The ICEM pledges to alert affiliates whenever it becomes aware of mass deaths inside any work facility caused by negligence or faulty safety systems. It is the expectation that trade union affiliates will bring attention to these horrific acts to their own governments and inside their own enterprises in order that a new safety consciousness is raised and a new culture of health and safety is built.
The ICEM also calls for ratification and strict adherence to all of the important ILO instruments on occupational health and safety, including: ILO Convention 155, the Occupational Safety and Health Convention; Convention 174, the Prevention of Major Industrial Accidents Convention; Convention 162, the Asbestos Convention; Convention 148, the Working Environment (Air Pollution, Noise, Ventilation); Convention 136, the Benzene Convention; Convention 170, the Chemicals Convention; Convention 115, the Radiation Protection Convention; Convention 139, the Occupational Cancer Convention; Convention 183, the Maternity Protection Convention; and Convention 176, on Safety and Health in Mines, as well as attention to the ILO Guidelines on health and Safety management Systems.
Finally, the ICEM calls on other Global Union Federations to join its campaign for better safety and health conditions throughout all industries.