BP rig workers removed via court order

The move prompted a protest yesterday by the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU) outside BPTT’s office at Queen’s Park Savannah West, Port of Spain.

OWTU’s labour relations officer Lindon Mendoza said the workers were “unceremoniously removed” from their offshore workstations. Mendoza said the decision of the workers was in keeping with the established “stop work” policy.

“The driller had a discussion with the offshore installation manager and also the night pusher,” he said.

“They were the two primary Rowan personnel onboard who were responsible for the operations and the rig. These personnel undertook to get back to the workers however, to date, the workers have had no feedback as it relates to the safety concerns raised. The workers were asked to leave the rig, leave their place of work, and when they refused to leave citing that they are well within their rights to initiate a stop work authority, the company Rowan would have used the judicial system to have the workers wrongfully removed from the installation via a High Court order.” Mendoza said there was no reason identified on the order.

When asked if the workers were trespassing on the rig and whether it was an injunction by the court to get the workers off the rig, Mendoza asked, “How can workers be trespassing on their place of work? Workers did not walk out to sea, workers did not swim out to sea, workers did not board their own vessel to sea, they were taken there by company transport.

These workers work on a 14-days on and 14- days off confined rotation basis.” He alleged there were a number of health and safety incidents with one occurring on March 27 where the top drive of the rig was damaged by two joints of drill pipes. Mendoza said the pipe fell and could have possibly injured or killed workers.

He said, prior to that a worker sustained injuries to his arm and another sustained injuries to his toe.

“After investigation we are not clear if these injuries were reported to the OSH (Occupational Safety and Health) Authority, which is mandated by the laws of this country.

What we are asking for this afternoon is an independent investigation by BP into the increase of the incidents and accidents onboard the Rowan EXL II rig and, secondly, the method by which the workers were removed when they were exercising both what is identified in the policy as a right and an obligation.” He said the workers are not aware of what their employment status would be and there is a rumour that the workers are now blacklisted from operations on any BP platform.

“We want BP to come out and make a categorical statement regarding these allegations.”