Battle Continues For Offshore Workers

05-01-2007

A long-running battle between UK North Sea oil and gas employers and trade unions over holiday entitlement for offshore workers seems destined to continue, possibly for years.

Yesterday the employers announced they would not appeal against an Employment Appeal Tribunal decision that the EU Working Time Directive applied to all offshore areas. However, they made clear they will fight to the highest possible court to prevent the "nightmare scenario" of all time spent offshore being deemed working time.

If all time spent offshore was deemed to be working time, then workers would only be able to spend eight days offshore a month and would bring an end to the North Sea industry in its present form.

They insist they already comply with the Working Time Directive and that if the Jaeger ruling – a European Court of Justice ruling in relation to a doctor whose on-call time in hospital spent sleeping was ruled to be working time – was implemented offshore everyone would lose.

Implementation would not only mean the workforce would lose a substantial part of its wages, but also that 20,000 additional trained workers would be required to cover shifts. Those qualified workers do not exist. It is claimed this would lead to chronic skills shortages and rapid decline as large parts of North Sea production would have to close down.

The real issue is whether, as the unions claim, offshore workers are entitled to four weeks' extra leave over and above the minimum 26 weeks onshore break which they already receive. The employers insist the 26 weeks provide for four weeks' leave and also give comfortably more time than the Working Time Directive requires.

United Kingdom Offshore Operators' Association director Chris Allen said yesterday it felt it would be sensible to move on to securing clarity on what the Working Time Regulations actually require on the issue of leave entitlement through employment tribunals. Jake Molloy, general secretary of the OILC offshore union, said the decision not to appeal the jurisdiction decision was the first constructive move by the employers since the regulations were introduced in August 2003.

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