"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 who have refused to negotiate with the unions until they hold a ballot!
Thursday's meeting should immediately go ahead with the ballot and name the day for the start of an all-out North Sea-wide strike. All-out action will quickly bring the employers to their knees. It will cost them 400,000 barrels a day and hit the exchequer to the sum of £2.2million per day.
OILC should take firm control of the running of the dispute on the ground and there must be no deals over the heads of the rank and file which leave a single oilworker locked out.
