ICEM UPDATE
15/2001
16 March 2001

The following is from the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM):

Oil Platform Disaster

Brazilian Oil Workers Demand: For Safety's Sake, End Subcontracting Now

Oil workers throughout Brazil today demonstrated for tighter safety in the national oil company Petrobras, following yesterday's disastrous oil platform explosions.

At the call of the oil union federation FUP, workers staged go-slows and other industrial demonstrations. In particular, they called for the right to stop work in case of danger. And they demanded an end to subcontracting in the oil industry. Today's protests and the FUP demands were fully backed by Brazilian unions in all sectors, via the national labour confederation CUT.

The 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), to which the FUP is affiliated at the global level, also pledged its full support for the Brazilian oil workers' campaign.

"One worker died in the explosion, one has been hospitalised in a serious condition, with little prospect of survival, and a further nine workers are missing and have already been given up for dead by the Petrobras management," the FUP said today.

Brazil's Regulatory Standards NR-9 and NR-5 do in fact give workers the right to halt work on their own initiative in the case of a perceived imminent danger. However, these norms are widely disregarded in practice and relatively few workers are aware of their rights. Today, the FUP demanded full and immediate implementation of stop-work rights.

Subcontracting of jobs is a rapidly growing trend throughout the world oil industry and in many other industrial sectors. Trade unions worldwide have repeatedly drawn attention to the risks involved. Subcontracted workers - who are not on the payroll of the company where they actually work and who frequently change jobs - have demonstrably higher accident rates than do regular company employees.

The Petrobras P-36 rig, which suffered a series of explosions in Brazil's Campos Basin yesterday, is the world's biggest semi-submersible oil platform.

P-36, which is now tilting and taking on water, contains about 1.5 million litres of petrol and oil. These could spill into the sea, causing a major environmental catastrophe within the next three days.

Petrobras has a very poor safety record, FUP Coordinator Mauricio Franca Rubem told the ICEM today. "Since the beginning of last year," he said, "the oil workers' unions and the FUP have recorded 95 significant accidents within Petrobras units, of which 18 were fatal. Of these deaths, 16 were among oil workers employed by subcontractors."

The Campos Basin holds the record for accidents, Franca Rubem said. 50 of the recorded accidents occurred in this area, causing 12 deaths (of which 11 were among subcontracted workers).

Petrobras is not providing adequate training for subcontracted workers, he insisted. At the same time, drastically reduced manning levels mean that the regular employees are also getting less time for safety training. "Compared with a total of some 62,000 workers at the beginning of the 1990s, the company today operates with about 34,000 people on its payroll, despite the increase in production and activities."

In the past three years, 81 workers have been killed on Petrobras sites, he added. "That's an average of two human lives lost every month." Of the 81 who died, 66 were subcontracted workers.

The Petrobras management is "clearly responsible" for the series of disasters, Franca Rubem insisted. The "brutal subcontracting implemented within the company", in tandem with the "criminal cutbacks in the regular workforce", has "multiplied the risks already inherent in this sector."

Individual ICEM UPDATE items can be supplied in other languages on request.

Our print magazines ICEM INFO and ICEM GLOBAL are available in English, French, German, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish.

Visit us on the Net at www.icem.org

ICEM
avenue Emile de Beco 109, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium. tel.+32.2.6262020 fax +32.2.6484316
E-mail: info@icem.org

Editor: Ian Graham, Information Office

Publisher: Fred Higgs, General Secretary

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