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12 July, 2010
Two UK trade unions are demanding an independent inquiry into the explosion at Total’s Lindsey oil refinery in the afternoon of 29 June that killed one union member, and injured two others. The explosion was followed by a fire in a crude oil distillation unit of the massive refinery in North Lincolnshire.
Twenty-four-year-old Robert Greenacre, a pipe fitter, was killed. He did not answer a safety roll call following the blast and his body was recovered late in the evening of 29 June. Greenacre, a member of Unite the Union, was an employee of a sub-contractor working for Jacobs Engineering, the primary contractor for Paris-based Total at Lindsey.
“Unite puts the highest premium on health and safety in the workplace and we are calling for an immediate, independent, and comprehensive inquiry into what happened,” stated Unite National Officer for Construction Tom Hardacre. “We would particularly like to know why further searches were not made when our member was unaccounted for in the roll-call when employees were evacuated.”
Robert Greenacre
The GMB National Organiser for Engineering and Construction, Phil Whitehurst, also demanded that Total be held accountable. He said hard questions need to be asked both of the company and UK’s Health and Safety Executive over why a “Permit to Work” was issued for pipefitting work inside the HDS-3 plant of the refinery. This “brings into question Total’s safety record yet again,” said Whitehurst. “They have to be held accountable.”
The GMB union leader was referring to a very recent verdict in a case from Total’s Buncefield oil depot in which the French company admitted health and safety regulations had been breached, causing a 2005 explosion that injured 40 workers.
In the days following the 29 June Lindsey blast, Total did send home 2,000 workers from the site because of asbestos exposure concerns due to damage from the explosion. Those workers began returning to work today, with the remainder due back to work tomorrow. All received full pay while idled.
Greenacre, who had worked at his trade for five years, was engaged to be married and he and his wife-to-be recently purchased their first house together. The ICEM extends its condolences to the young worker’s family, to Unite and GMB, and to all workers at Lindsey.