Norwegian Employees of Oil Giant Schlumberger Threaten to Strike If Working Conditions and Salaries Do Not Improve

Workers of the Oil Multinational Schlumberger from Norway Plan Strike Starting in December Demanding Better Salaries and Working Conditions

About 262 workers from Schlumberger’s Norwegian oil service plan to strike starting December 3 if negotiations with employers over salaries and working conditions fail. According to the Norwegian union Safe, the negotiations involve drillers, well service teams, divers, and other workers from subcontractors in the oil industry such as Baker Hughes, Vetco Gray, Weatherford, Oceaneering, Schlumberger, and Subsea 7.

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Reuters reported in an article that if a strike occurs on December 3, it may escalate in the following weeks to include workers from other companies.

A strike at Schlumberger in Norway – or at any of the other listed companies – would not affect ongoing oil and gas production but would disrupt other functions such as the drilling of new wells. Among the fields that would be impacted are Gullfaks, Statfjord, and Valhall, as well as several mobile offshore drilling rigs.

In total, about 700 workers are covered by the collective labor agreement between Safe and the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association (NOGA). Key production workers in the sector, who are directly employed by oil companies and, therefore, not part of the latest negotiations, settled their pay demands last month after a 10-day strike that cut production and shook energy markets.

A larger union, Industri Energi, stated in October that it had agreed to a pay deal for about 6,500 oil sector workers and would not go on strike.

According to Reuters, Safe said that the rights of some of its members have been eroded and fears this could spread, with the potential consequence that wages in certain cases could be reduced by up to 47%.

Separately, on Thursday, the planned escalation of a security strike could shut a quarter of Norway’s gas exports to Europe in the coming days, said the gas system operator Gassco.