Union members in Statoil with experience from the NCS commented on the platform plans, and their input was appended to the plan for development and operation (PDO) of the field. The company accordingly needed help, and it found this from state-owned Statoil (now Equinor) – which was then a fellow licensee in Draugen. Norske Shell was not the operator for any other developments on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS), and therefore had few personnel with offshore experience. No offshore organisation for the field existed at that time. When the Draugen platform was to be planned, however, there were no unions to confer with. Norwegian regulations require unions to be involved in the ergonomic design and configuration of workplaces. Fotnote: Tor Arnesen interviewed by Trude Meland, Norwegian Petroleum Museum, 14 November 2017.īut Norske Shell believed this to be both right and important. Norske Shell’s parent, Royal Dutch/Shell, is a big multinational group, and many of its executives and shareholders undoubtedly looked askance at the country’s commitment to worker participation. When Draugen came to be developed, it went without saying for Shell’s Norwegian arm that a collaboration had to be established with the workers and their organisations.įoreign companies do not always share the same understanding of Norway’s collaborative model. This later became part of the Norwegian Oil and Petrochemical Workers Union (Nopef), which has evolved into the Norwegian Union of Industry and Energy Workers (Industry Energy – IE). Shell opened its own refinery in Sola local authority outside Stavanger in 1967 (see the separate article on this facility), and an in-house union was also organised there. It has an almost equally lengthy engagement with organised Norwegian labour – starting with the transport workers’ union, which many of its drivers belonged to. Photo: A/S Norske Shell/Norwegian Petroleum Museum (See the separate article on Royal Dutch/Shell.) Shell-raffineriet på sola, forsidebilde, engelsk, The Shell refinery at Sola. Norske Shell was established in Norway as far back as 1913, and has a long history of selling and distributing oil products in the country. Fotnote: Meland, T (2018), “Sikkerheten utfordres”, Norsk Oljemuseums Årbok. Worker participation – also known as industrial democracy – is an old Norwegian tradition, and became part of the main agreement between unions and employers as early as the 1930s. Both bi- and tripartite versions rest on a equality principle and depend on mutual trust, good communication and reciprocal recognition of roles and responsibilities. This reflects the way working life in Norway is largely constructed around the “Norwegian model” – a strong welfare state, a regulated labour market and extensive “tripartite” collaboration between employers, unions and government.īipartite cooperation between employers and unions is also pursued locally in the workplace, built on open processes and worker participation in job-related decisions. And several union branches were quickly formed both on land and offshore when the decision was taken to develop Draugen in 1988. These organisations followed the industry northwards along the Norwegian continental shelf in the 1980s.
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