The North Sea 1. The reaction to Piper Alpha
In this interview, Neil Rothnie describes the surge of organisation among oil workers in the British section of the North Sea in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The shock of the explosion on the Piper Alpha oil rig on 6 July 1988, in which 167 oil workers died, was a catalyst for rank-and-file organisation. Activists established the Oil Industry Liaison Committee (OILC), after the Piper Alpha disaster, to coordinate…
