... with your 2008-09 4.3% pay deal. OCA chief executive Bill Murray is "delighted that 52% of Amicus-Unite offshore members voted in a ballot to accept it, with 48% voting to reject".
Complete baloney. There was no ballot. The OCA sweetheart union Amicus-Unite rubberstamped the imposed settlement in the usual time honoured fashion. The “total non-disruption factor” in the OCA “agreement” does not allow Amicus-Unite to do anything else. The OCA sweetheart agreement is not only a no-strike agreement — it is a no-negotiation agreement!
The OCA claims the deal is worth 4.3%. But no one, including the offshore workers alleged to have accepted it, has seen a shred of paper giving the detail. This below-inflation pay deal represents a drop in real wages, just at a time when oil companies enjoy quadrupled income from the North Sea.
Thousands of OCA employees await back pay from the 2006-07 imposed settlement. Thousands more wait for 4-weeks’ paid holidays conceded in exchange for OILC withdrawing (in good faith) legal action against OCA companies. OCA employers treat their only asset — the workforce — with contempt, but for how much longer?
Drilling workers are “offered” 5% for 2009. Yet rig rates have trebled in some cases to $300,000 a day. Drilling contractors on instruction from Houston refuse point blank to honour your legal entitlement to 4-weeks’ paid holiday. The OILC-RMT legal action against drilling contractors and the phony no-holidays UKDCA “agreement” is moving up a gear. In December the fight goes to Appeal in Edinburgh. OILC-RMT has hired premier league Hendy QC for the re-match.
The COTA caterers deal is 4.6%, the RPI (retail price index) for July — in effect a pay freeze. Despite being a 2-year deal it will need revisiting sooner rather than later depending on the outcome of the OILC-RMT legal action for 4-weeks’ paid holiday. Catering workers’ entitlements are not one iota less than any other.
OILC-RMT is not anti-employer. The reverse. We want employers to thrive and generate profit for shareholders. How else will we stay employed? But mutual respect and a fair deal must prevail. Presently too many offshore employers treat too many offshore employees with filthy disrespect.
OILC-RMT is committed to changing all this. We grow rapidly on installations and rigs across the UKCS — engineering/maintenance/production operatives, drilling personnel, service hands, caterers, ROV operatives and divers — remember our 45% pay victory for divers in ’07. We are the union of, and for, all offshore workers.