22 March, 2010
The latest in a series of Caspian Sea Oil & Gas Workers’ Network meetings took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, on 22-23 February, again with support fro the German Friedrich-Ebert Foundation (FES). FES’s local representative in Baku, Rashad Huseynli, actively participating in the event.
Lars Myhre, chair of ICEM’s Energy Industries Section and a founder of Norwegian affiliate Industri Energi (IE), again headed this year’s discussions. IE has played a strong role in the network since its inception and has carried out extensive bilateral programmes and exchanges with the host union, the Oil and Gas Workers Union of Azerbaijan.
Some of the participants at the Caspian Workers’ Network
Delegates attending came from the Russia Oil & Gas Workers’ Union (ROGWU), led by President Lev Mironov, and included representatives from the trade union structures of both Gazprom and Rosneft. The host union delegation, led by President Jahangir Aliev, included a representative from the Lukoil trade union in Azerbaijan, as well as the newly-elected chairman of the trade union branch at the Caspian Shipyard Company.
Workers here had seen the success of oil workers’ organising at various contract company operations and began organising themselves. The union is the latest branch structure to affiliate to the Oil and Gas Workers’ Union of Azerbaijan, which has successfully organised over 400 of the 650 workers at the shipyard. Apologies for absence were received from ICEM affiliates Petrol-Iş of Turkey and the Oil Workers of Kazakhstan, active members of the network. Both unions were unable to attend because of important meetings in their respective countries.
After an opening session and delegate introductions, updates were given on ICEM activities in Eastern Europe/Central Asia by ICEM Regional Coordinator Anatoly Surin. Jim Catterson, ICEM’s Energy Industries Officer, gave an overview of the oil and gas sectors globally. Delegates then shared detailed information on the latest situations in their country’s energy sectors, covering such issues as organising, terms and conditions of employment, and recent investments by various multinational companies.
Front, from left: Oil and Gas Workers’ Union of Azerbaijan Leader Jahangir Aliyev, ICEM’s Anatoly Surin, and Lev Mironov, President of ROGWU
Lars Myhre gave a detailed presentation on the various agreements that IE has covering Statoil in Norway.
The previous meeting of the Network had formulated a declaration of common social standards to aim for in national negotiations, and this meeting focused on the potential for engaging the multinational companies operating in the Caspian region in a regional social dialog forum. Detailed presentations covering their operations in the Caspian were given by management representatives of both Statoil of Norway and SOCAR, the state-owned company of Azerbaijan that is in the process of expanding regionally, having recently purchased a refinery in Turkey. Both presentations led to lively question and answer sessions.
After a general presentation by Jim Catterson on ICEM activities regarding Social Dialog including Global Framework Agreements (GFAs), presentations were made by Myhre and Lev Mironov on the GFAs that ICEM has with Statoil and Lukoil.
In conclusion, delegates emphasized that the meeting had been extremely useful and had led to a considerable exchange of valuable information. It was time, however, to make the work of the Network more comprehensive and to ensure an effective information exchange occurs between network meetings.
With this in mind, ICEM was asked to create a section of the ICEM website which would initially include the background material and presentations made at the meeting, as well as a report on the discussions. ICEM would also circulate a questionnaire asking all network members to detail the companies that operate in their section of the Caspian and give information on workforce numbers, trade union organization, and terms and conditions of employment.
The results of the questionnaire would also be published. The study would also give a basis as to which companies to approach in order to establish routine social dialog at this regional level. Since ROGWU is considering introducing a system of video-conferencing for routine communication with regions across the Russian Federation, ICEM will also explore the use of this technology for more frequent exchanges.
The work of the Caspian Sea Oil & Gas Workers’ Network will also form part of the agenda of the forthcoming ICEM World Conference for the Energy Industries, to be held in Stavanger, Norway, from 6-8 September.