Paying for the Piper Capital and Labour in Britain's Offshore Oil Industry

This book is an appraisal of current offshore industrial relations, and safety regulations instituted after the 1988 Alpha disaster in the North Sea. This text discusses the oil industry's attempts to contain subsequent, unwelcome regulatory interference, and examines the fraught history of trade unionism in the offshore industry, the conflict over health and safety, and the sometimes brutal struggle over union rights as the workforce attempted to achieve a collective voice in the reshaping of the safety and production environment. The authors conclude that, as yet, offshore safety has been little, or not at all, improved.

List of Tables, List of Figures and Illustrations, Foreword, Acknowledgements, Abbreviations, Introduction, PART 1. CAPITAL AND LABOUR, 1. Oil, Imperialism and the British State: The Origins of the Crisis, 2. Problems of Union Mobilization Offshore: The 1970s and 1980s, PART 2. INDUSTRIAL ACTION, 3. Prelude to Action, 4. The Summer of Discontent, PART 3. OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY, 5. Lord Cullen's Report, 6. 'A Profound Change of Culture', 7. The Strategy of Containment, 8. Paying for the Piper?, PART 4. THE FUTURE, 9. Striking Out: Setting a New Agenda, 10. The Future of OffshoreTrade Unionism, 11. The Restructuring of Britain's Offshore Oil and Gas Industry, 12. Conclusion: An Unsafe Future, Postscript, Afterword, Bibliography, Index

Woolfson, Charles; Foster, John; Beck, Matthais