Socialist Organiser

TUC lets down oil workers

Eugene Rutherford, secretary of the Liverpool Branch of the Offshore Industry Liaison Committee, spoke to Socialist Organiser. Probably four thousand men have now been sacked in the North Sea. They have got to be reinstated before we go anywhere. We are going for basic trade union rights offshore. We want union recognition, and the Health and Safety Act implemented. We came to the TUC Congress to lobby the unions and make them aware. We're going to be their conscience. The response so far has been pretty poor. They don't want to look at us. They just walk past us like we're not here. All I see...

Why the oil workers fight for the union

Hull Trades Council has set an example with its solidarity work with the workers involved in the Offshore Industry Liaison Committee dispute. The Trades Council Disputes Committee has been co-ordinating activity through its contacts in local trade union branches and Labour Party wards, setting up meetings, arranging speakers and raising money throughout Humberside. On Thursday 20 September two OILC members, Mike Gibbons and Willi Stephenson were in Hull and reported on the latest developments. Mike said: "I've been on the rigs since 1981, but was run off for two years early on for trade union...

The offshore workers can win

Oil workers are to be balloted over the coming weeks for an all-out official strike across the North Sea. The aim of the action will be to enforce union recognition and basic health and safety standards. The decision by the TUC and the seven national unions with members in the offshore industry to back this course of action is a result of the sustained and effective campaign wage by the rank and file based Offshore Industry Liaison Committee. However, big problems remain. Most of the best militants in the industry will not get a vote because they have been victimised. Humberside OILC chair...

Debating all out action

About 150 oil workers met in the Mitchell Theatre in Glasgow on Thursday 6 September as part of what have become weekly meetings in Glasgow of the OILC. OILC met in the midst of the impending ballots regarding whether the action became official or not. Feelings ran high at the meeting with workers on the southern field arguing that the men were ready to go on all-out strike. The standing committee of the OILC, made up of rank and file oil workers, responded that central to the dispute was the maintenance of men on the platforms to prevent BP using scab labour. The position is now complex as...

Unofficial action starts again

Unofficial action has started again on the North Sea. This Wednesday, 12 September, the OILC has called a one-day strike in the southern sector mainly aimed at AMOCO. This strike is conceived as a protest at AMOCO's safety record - only days ago a major disaster (an explosion, in fact) was avoided by oil workers who stuck to their guns and refused to follow management's potentially murderous orders. The strike is also aimed at the oil contractors who are refusing to co-operate with the ballot. Meanwhile, catering workers in the offshore industry have voted for all-out strike action over pay...

Oil workers: keep up the pressure. Name the day of action!

"On one issue there can be no compromise. That is our demand that the men sacked after taking action should be reinstated." Ronnie McDonald, Chair, Offshore Industries Liaison Committee. Representatives of the rank and file-based Offshore Industries Liaison Committee (OILC) are to meet national union officials this week to review progress in the oil workers' safety and recognition dispute. The unions are preparing a ballot for union recognition but are being obstructed by the oil companies who refuse to provide them with the names and addresses of workers. Yet it is the same oil contractors...

'The North Sea will never be the same again'

Socialist Organiser spoke to Laughlin and Bob who spent two weeks sitting in on the Brent Alpha platform following the first 24-hour strike. Bob: The sit-in started because we were originally locked out and told to go home, which we refused to do. We wanted to go back to work. Because management wouldn't let us go back to work we decided to sit in. Originally there were about 60 men two weeks ago, but we lost a lot straightaway because the company said, 'right boys, if you come to the beach by this deadline, you will be re-employable and on half-pay or standby pay'. Then it got to 'listen boys...

'We are the organised rank and file'

Ronnie McDonald of the Oil Industry Liaison Committee describes the state of the action in the North Sea. Planning has been key to these strikes. Obviously the very nature of the business is that the men are isolated out there on plaforms; then they come ashore, and scatter to the four winds. So that's the problem we had to tackle and we did that by regular mass meetings throughout the country with a growing schedule over the winter: Glasgow, Newcastle, Middlesbrough, Aberdeen, Dundee, occasionally in Liverpool. But the meetings have been the key. Then we had to look at the legal situation and...

Oil rig workers pile on the pressure

"We got the result today, fact!" announced Ronnie McDonald of the Offshore Industry Liaison Commitee after the fourth successive strike in 11 days. 74 offshore installations were affected, bringing in new strikers and those downmanned from previous stoppages. The determination to fight has spread to onshore workers. 50 walked out at MOD Coulport on Monday, 200 at Browns Engineering on Tuesday. Over the weekend workers at two rigbuilding yards, Davey and Ardersier and St Fergus gas terminal came out spontaneously in solidarity. The action has encouraged workers employed directly bu the oil...

Oil bosses strike unionism

Over the last year one of the most important organising drivers in the history of the British trade union movement has been taking place. A rank and file body, the Oil Industry Liaison Committee, has been fighting a long guerilla war to unionise the North Sea oil rigs and win decent health and safety provision. A series of strikes last summer won some gains on pay and helped build organisation. This year rig workers plan to really hammer the bosses. An overtime ban is spreading across the oil fields. Over 20 installations are affected so far, involving 4000 workers, union and non-union alike...

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