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ST-JOHN'S, NFLD -- Oil workers on the Hibernia oil platform, off the coast of Newfoundland, have become the first ever to become unionized in Canada.

“I hope these are the first of many offshore oil workers -- who face hazardous and stressful working conditions on the high seas -- to benefit from the protection of a union,” said Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union National President Brian Payne, as he announced the precedent-setting victory today.

CEP has spent the last four years supporting efforts to bring union protection to the nearly 400 drillers, roughnecks, nurses, cooks, and others who work aboard the Hibernia platform, more than 315 kilometres out in the ocean.

“The problems of organizing these workers at times seemed insurmountable,” says Payne, “but we are extremely pleased that they realize the positive contribution that CEP can make to their working life by voting to be represented by CEP Local 60N.

Payne says the victory opens the door for CEP to start unionizing other offshore platforms, including Sable Island and Terra Nova. He stressed that conditions for these employees are often harsh, noting in particular that health and safety issues and the three weeks on, three weeks off shift schedule that can take an enormous toll on their personal lives.

“The employer used every trick in the book to try to keep the union out,” he says.

“The reason the organizing drive took so long was largely due to the employer’s successful efforts to stall union access to the workers at their worksite. The employer’s demands to pad the bargaining unit with managers and for labour board hearings on who was in the bargaining unit lasted 17 months.

“But CEP was determined that these and other offshore oil workers should have input into their wages and working conditions to bring them in line with other unionized workers in the oil industry.

“And are putting other offshore oil rig employers on union alert,” says Payne, noting that action by the Newfoundland labour minister will go a long way to making the organizing process more efficient.

For the first time in history, Labour Minister Anna Thistle appointed a full-time chair of the labour board, who convened a round table discussion on the delays during the Hibernia organizing campaign. CEP participated.

More than 35,000 of its 150,000 members work in the energy sector, making CEP Canada’s largest union representing energy workers.

For more information:
RON SMITH (709) 486-0002 or (709) 486-2277.

HIBERNIA WORKERS UNIONIZE
SOURCE: NATIONAL STATION: CBC-RDATE: 15 OCTOBER 2001

JOHN LACHARITY (CBC): Well for the 400 people who work on the Hibernia offshore drilling platform, they made some history last week. As you may have heard, they voted to be unionized. Gavin Will is a freelance journalist in St. John's. On Commentary this morning he says the vote means the workers will now have a say in their own safety and working conditions.

GAVIN WILL (Freelance Journalist, St. John's): Last week Newfoundland workers sent a message to ExxonMobil, the world's largest company. Treat us with respect or talk to our union.

There are 400 people working on the Hibernia oil production platform which is situated on the Grand Banks, 315 kilometres east of Newfoundland. These workers have taken unprecedented action in North America's offshore petroleum industry by opting to establish a union. In doing so they joined tens of thousands of unionized workers in Canada's onshore oil and gas industry. Most of whom work in Alberta.

ExxonMobil is making a final appeal to the Supreme Court in Newfoundland to have the decision overturned. What's important now is that workers have made it known they want to be unionized.

The Communications,(Reporter): Energy and Paperworkers Union spent four years attempting to organize Hibernia. Along the way the CEP prevailed over a competing bid by the Canadian Auto Workers. But its greatest opponent was ExxonMobil which heads a group of oil companies that control Hibernia. ExxonMobil has revenues that exceed the gross national product of most nations. It operates on a global scale and is used to getting its own way with governments and workers.

Until now offshore employees throughout North America had been willing to put up with the downside of working for giant oil companies. They sacrificed job security and input into working conditions for the high wages and impressive benefits offered by oil companies in Canada and the United States.

But in Newfoundland the companies miscalculated. They tried to take advantage of Newfoundland's struggling economy, as well as the desire of Newfoundlanders to live and work in their own province. ExxonMobil believed Hibernia workers would accept lower wages than their counterparts in Alberta. It believed they would accept three week shifts, when workers on North Sea oil platforms only work two weeks at a time.

Longer shifts are proven to create safety risks on offshore oil platforms. And safety is always an issue in Newfoundland's offshore oil industry. Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the Ocean Ranger disaster. Eighty-four men, the entire crew, died when the world's largest floating exploration rig capsized during a winter storm.

This win by the union is a victory for organized labour and may well set a precedent for unionizing other offshore oil and gas installations such as Terra Nova and Nova Scotia's Sable gas project. But this is also a victory for democracy. In Newfoundland and Nova Scotia oil companies have operated far from the glare of television cameras and prying journalists. Obtaining independent information about Hibernia became difficult once the platform was towed far out to sea in 1997.

The reasons for freezing out the media are simple. For the oil companies media coverage does not help the balance sheet. Now that the union is onboard the Hibernia platform reporters have access to new sources of information. Workers can finally speak out without fear of losing their jobs.

This is vital in a free country, especially now when Canadians are debating the trade-off between national security and personal freedoms.

For Commentary I'm Gavin Will in St. John's.
LACHARITY: Gavin Will is a freelance journalist in Newfoundland.