oil
News and articles about work, policy and workers' struggles in the energy sector around the world.
Bahrain oil workers win bonuses
BAPCO workers won their fight for a two-month annual bonus yesterday. The company increased its earlier offer of seven weeks pay, after union members rejected it at a secret ballot.
It originally offered a one-month bonus, sparking an angry reaction from union leaders, who said workers deserved more. Oil and Gas Affairs Minister and Bapco chairman Dr Abdulhussain Mirza said yesterday that an agreement had been reached with the trade unionists.
"We have agreed to give a two-month salary as the annual bonus," he said.
Oil workers strike in Trinidad
Striking workers tried to break down the gates of the Petrotrin administration building yesterday as protest action escalated over non-payment of profit sharing.
President general of the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU), Ancil Roget, led the workers in a march outside the Petrotrin refinery in Pointe-a-Pierre as he warned the public, “Fasten your seat belts and get ready for a rotten ride.”
Energy wildcats continue to spread across the UK
The wave of wildcat strike action that has swept across the UK escalated today as hundreds more workers walked out in the protest at the exclusion of British workers from jobs.
Contract workers from the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria, the Heysham nuclear power station in Lancashire and a site at Staythorpe, in Nottinghamshire, joined the unofficial action over the hiring of Italian and Portuguese workers, which local unemployed British workers were unable to apply for on a Lincolnshire power station project.
Tea Break 3 - oil refinery strikes, February 2009
A PDF of the February 2009 issue of the irregular workers' bulletin Tea Break, written and designed by users of libcom.org, for general distribution. The freesheet focuses on wildcat strikes at refineries across the country, addressing issues raised by the conflict.
Unofficial refinery walkouts 'over foreign workers' spread
An assessment of the spread of the refinery wildcat strikes - purportedly over the hiring of foreign workers - and the media coverage of them.
The wave of unofficial walkouts following the use of the Italian construction contractor, IREM with its own workforce at Total's Lindsey oil refinery have received a great deal of media coverage.
Brazil oil strike spreads
Brazilian oil workers on Thursday expanded a strike that was limited to platforms in the Campos Basin to all production and refining units of state-run energy company Petrobras.
Petrobras said on Thursday output at its platforms, refineries and distribution units was not affected by the strike. But the unions will vote next week on a proposal to stop production in a nationwide strike planned for Aug. 5.
Brazilian oil workers begin five day strike
Brazilian oil workers have begun a five day strike as of midnight last night.
The Brazilian state-run oil producer, Petrobras, says the strike has cut its production by 7%. The union, however, is saying the walkout has cut production by more like 22%, approximately 400,000 barrels.
Shell truckers offered 14 per cent pay rise
Oil tanker drivers supplying Shell petrol stations have called off a planned second round of industrial action after being offered a reported 14 per cent pay increase over two years.
The last minute offer was made to the drivers’ union, the ITF affiliated Unite, by Hoyer UK and Suckling Transport, who are contracted to distribute Shell supplies. It followed four days of peaceful industrial action in the UK, with more planned.
Fears of UK trucks strike activates emergency oil plans
Emergency procedures have been activated within the oil industry ahead of a threatened four-day strike by tanker drivers, amid fears that filling stations across Britain could start running out of fuel from this weekend (13th June).
John Hutton, business secretary, fears the strike could prompt much more widespread fuel shortages than those caused by the strike at the Grangemouth oil refinery in April, and has ordered officials to draw up contingency plans. Industry executives believe these fears are well founded.
70,000 Spanish truckers strike, blockade border with France
French and Spanish truckers blockaded roads on the border of south-western France on 9th June in protest at rising fuel prices.
In the latest show of distress with fuel prices, Spanish truckers on Monday began a blockade of their country's border with France, lining up their rigs and slowing them to a crawl to protest the cost of fuel. The strike blocked the highway in both directions in southwestern France.
