The Human Factors of Process Safety and Worker Empowerment in the Offshore Oil Industry: Proceedings of a Workshop by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Behavioral and Social Sciences: Human Systems and Technology, Industry and Labor: Workforce and Labor Issues
Publisher: The National Academies Press
Published: 2018-07-23T00:00:00+00:00

ASSOCIATIONS FOR MAKING THE VOICES OF GULF WORKERS HEARD

Unlike other countries, the United States lacks an overarching regulatory structure for the offshore oil industry, noted Rick Engler, a member of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, commonly referred to as the Chemical Safety Board (CSB).3 Some states have safety committees tied to their worker compensation systems, but “it’s a patchwork,” he said. “Safety committees often have minimal responsibilities, rights, duties, and structures.”

Engler cited as another fundamental difference that there are essentially no trade unions in the Gulf of Mexico working offshore. This is in contrast to the onshore oil industry, he pointed out, as workers in roughly 90 of the 140 oil refineries in the United States have union representation. According to Engler, this difference reflects an earlier merger of the oil, chemical, and atomic workers into the United Steelworkers Union, which represents approximately 30,000 refinery workers and steelworkers today. He observed that the collective bargaining rights provided for under the 1935 National Labor Relations Act enable unions to negotiate on wages, hours, and working conditions, which for the oil industry has resulted in a number of health and safety improvements. These improvements, Engler explained, include health and safety committees; time off for training; the hiring of health consultants; and the designation of safety representatives, including representatives focused on process safety. In general, he said, these measures enable employees to have their voices heard, and those voices can be a critical component of empowerment.

Engler pointed to many factors that make it difficult to establish unions in the Gulf, including low levels of union representation in the private sector, the fragmentation of the workforce, and the number of different contractors involved in the offshore industry. Nevertheless, he expressed the opinion that bringing workers together across employers and locations would give them a greater voice on the job. “Ultimately, it’s going to depend on those people who are on the front lines of facing danger and doing this work,” he said. They are the ones who can “stand up, speak out, and pose challenges about how to move ahead.” One approach, for example, would be forming an educational association of Gulf workers that would enable them to obtain additional training, raise technical questions, and report hazards anonymously.

In the discussion following Engler’s presentation, several workshop participants made the point that empowerment does not require unionization. For example, the ESRs in places that use that system are not necessarily unionized. Engler responded that very limited data do point to a correlation between safety and the establishment of safety committees in the states that have taken that step. But his larger point, he added, is that the structures to bring people together need not be unions; people just need to be working together to feel confident to speak out.

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1 More information on OPITO is available at https://www.opito.com [April 2018].

2 More information about Step Change in Safety is available at https://www.stepchangeinsafety.net [March 2018].

3 The views expressed below do not in their entirety reflect the official position of the U.

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