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Oil and gas workers to strike against oil companies that ‘bag’ big profits but refuse to give them ‘a fair share of the pie’
Kaieteur News – Oil and gas workers are planning to hit fossil fuel firms with a ‘tsunami’ of strikes, unions have announced.
Euro News reported that the mass industrial action will include around 1,400 workers at North Sea oil rigs owned by BP, Harbour Energy, Total, Shell and EnQuest.
Owing to the Russia-Ukraine war oil prices were sent soaring resulting in oil and gas companies seeing record-breaking profits.
Oil and gas workers are planning to hit fossil fuel firms with a ‘tsunami’ of strikes, unions have announced.
Euro News reported that workers are being left out in the cold when it comes to sharing this wealth, according to United General Secretary, Sharon Graham. “Oil and gas companies have been given free rein to enjoy massive windfall profits in the North Sea; drilling concessions are effectively licences to print money,” she warns.
“1,400 offshore workers are now set to take strike action against these employers who are raking it but refusing to give them a fair share of the pie. This will create a tsunami of industrial unrest in the offshore sector,” Graham noted.
According to the media entity, the striking workers are contracted to operators Bilfinger UK Limited, Stork construction, Petrofac Facilities Management Limited, and Wood Group UK Limited. These operators run the rigs on behalf of the oil companies listed above. Now they are walking out after various disputes over pay, overtime policy, and holiday entitlements.
Industrial action is set to hit several oil rigs from March 29, 2023 until June 2023 in a series of 24, 48 and 72-hour stoppages.
Greenpeace UK said that the environmental organisation stands “in solidarity” with the workers. “The greed is almost palpable,” says Greenpeace UK’s head of climate Mel Evans.
“Oil and gas workers have been hung out to dry, while their bosses and shareholders have raked in tens of billions of pounds over the past year. It’s no wonder they’re taking industrial action to demand a proper windfall tax on these obscene profits.”
Notably, several countries have imposed a ‘windfall’ tax to claw back some of the excess profit made by oil and gas last year.
Also, in September 2022, the European Union (EU) passed emergency legislation containing a temporary ‘windfall tax’ of 33 per cent on fossil fuel profits.
In response, American oil giant, ExxonMobil is now challenging this tax in court, claiming its profits have been unfairly impacted and it has lost money from the loss of Russian investments.
In the UK, an ‘energy profit levy’ of 35 per cent will run until March 28. The levy applies to extraction activity only and excludes a variety of government subsidies on fossil fuels.
Last December, Kaieteur News reported that stakeholders all over the world have accepted that major oil companies such as ExxonMobil would have generated ‘Observe’ profits from the energy sector following consecutive periods of high returns highlighted in quarterly earning calls. While some nations have demanded returns from the companies increased revenue, so are workers grappling with the high cost of living and the threat of a global recession.
It was stated that a report out of Fawley Village, Hampshire, in England said that oil workers there downed tools for some two weeks after ExxonMobil and its industry, Contractors Altrad and Bilfingerm, refused to negotiate an additional pay increase for affected workers. Video footage from London based civil rights group, ‘ReelNews’ showed scores of oil workers protesting against the ‘pitiful’ 2.5 percent pay increase even as they claimed that Exxon Mobil had sent police ranks to harass and intimidate them into backing down from industrial action. It has been stated that around 100 Boilermakers, Welders, Pipefitters, Mechanical Fitters and Scaffolders at the Fawley Plant in Hampshire had taken part in the action.
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