Sue Bolton, Melbourne
On February 1, workers employed by construction contractors on Esso's Bass Strait oil and gas platforms defeated an attempt by the oil company — the Australian subsidiary of ExxonMobil, the world's biggest oil corporation — to force the workers onto a new 14-day-on, 14-day-off rostering system.
The unions in dispute with the construction contractors were the Electrical Trades Union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, and the Australian Workers Union. The construction contractor they were in dispute with was Kellogg, Brown and Root, a branch of the Texas-based Halliburton company.
Workers for maintenance contractors on Esso's Bass Strait platforms have also successfully concluded their 18-week strike against the same roster plan.
Both groups of workers won the retention of the current 7-day-on, 7-day-off roster.
AMWU organiser Greg Warren told Green Left Weekly that Esso first tried to get its own work force to accept the 14-day-on, 14-day-off rosters at the end of 2002, but they "told Esso to get nicked". Then, "some 20 months ago, Esso, through its contractors, tried to change the offshore rostering from week-on week-off to 14 [days] on, 14 [days] off. Every time an [enterprise agreement] expired in relation to a contractor, they dropped the new roster on the table."
In December, the four unions involved in the dispute bussed workers and their families to Melbourne for a protest outside Esso's headquarters. Bass Strait workers at the protest told GLW that being separated from their families for seven days under the current 7-day-on, 7-day-off roster was already difficult, especially for families with small children. A 14-day-on, 14-day-off roster would make it far harder.
Workers also described their living conditions when working on the platforms. They work 12-hour days. They sleep four to a room that is 3 by 3.5 metres — about the size of a garden shed. They can't get a good night's sleep because the platform operates around the clock, with warning bells and clanging and banging going all night.
Warren said that all of the unions stuck together in their opposition to the 14-day roster. He said that the dispute "has bonded the Esso offshore and its contracting people together like glue now. There's no doubt Esso contractors did go through a period of union busting, offering LK [non-union] agreements in the workplace. Everyone stood up to it and stood together united."
This unity has meant that the unions have been able to establish an offshore committee of all unions, all contractors and Esso personnel. The last offshore committee fell apart about 15 years ago.
From Green Left Weekly, February 9, 2005.
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