Concerns over offshore safety

A union has warned that the offshore industry still did not pay enough attention to safety, two decades after the Piper Alpha disaster which killed 167 workers.

Maritime union RMT claimed that enforcement on safety issues was lax, and that the number of inspectors had fallen by almost 40% since 1994. And it said that workers risked being told they are "not required back" (NRB) if they raised safety issues.

The warning came on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Piper Alpha tragedy, when the North Sea oil platform exploded on July 6, 1988.

The RMT said there were concerns that the Health and Safety Executive's Offshore Division had been "captured" by the industry and was not enforcing safety issues strongly enough.

Bob Crow, RMT general secretary, said: "The Offshore Division of the HSE responsible for enforcing safety standards has dragged its feet on taking formal enforcement action to the extent that many offshore workers see it more as a poodle than a watchdog.

"In more than half the 83 offshore visits they made between 2004 and 2007 the installations were considered to be in a poor physical state, but where is the formal enforcement action?

"This is an industry in which millions in profits are made by the hour, but also one in which the threat of NRB still hangs over workers who dare to challenge their employers on safety issues."

RMT said that effective organisation of the offshore workforce was the key to improving safety.

There have been significant efforts to improve safety, and industry-specific regulations were imposed after the disaster.

Union chiefs said it was important for the industry to listen to its workers and not view their comments as a threat.