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25 July, 2006
The selective strike by ICEM Norwegian oil workers’ union NOPEF ended late on 24 July following a mediated session by the government. The 34-day strike against oil service companies operating on Norway’s Continental Shelf proved highly effective, and produced a new two-year agreement that fulfils NOPEF’s demands toward normalising the national oil services agreement with other collective agreements in the country’s energy sector.
The accord also matches the other agreements in the sector with the first-year wage increase, and provides an even better salary pay-out for 2007. Effective 1 July 2006, oil service workers in Norway, numbering some 2,650, receive a 5.9% wage increase. In 2007, a lump sum bonus of NOK 17,000 (US$2,800) was won.
But more significantly, the 2006-2006 agreement sets forth a protocol that will begin moving oil service companies to the standard rotation schedule of two-weeks on, four-weeks off. Local discussions toward that work schedule will now occur, with NOPEF and the employers’ federation, Oil Industry Association (OLF), meeting in February 2007 to review the progress.
NOPEF also achieved an increase in night work, added pay for holidays, and increases in food and travel pay and arrangements. The union did not achieve pay for waiting time, but that issue will be prioritised for talks in future renewal contracts. Workers will now vote on the new contract, with the vote to be completed by 1 September.
NOPEF’s strike against oil service contractors began on 21 June. The union called but 87 workers out on strike against just a handful of employers, knowing that such a strategy would place pressure on the oil majors in their drilling and development projects. The main employers targeted were Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger, Weatherford and Oceaneering.
The ICEM salutes NOPEF for carrying out a tactical and effective strike in achieving a national oil services agreement that has proven to be the most difficult in the Norwegian energy sector. The will and discipline from a set of highly-skilled workers and trade unionists has now brought major employers providing oil services closer to the work rules and terms of other companies operating inside Norway’s oil patch.