After negotiating in overtime, the negotiating committee of SAFE agreed with the employers.
SAFE won through with its main claim in which Schlumberger withdrew the termination of the local special agreement.
SAFE also put in place an agreement on international work with Subsea7.
The negotiating committee of SAFE has shown how great the cohesion is at Well Service and has sent a clear signal to employers regarding attacks on earned rights.
We would like to thank all the members for the strong will that collectively led to real negotiations when the company understood that this is something we stood against and that the termination of our Special Agreement is not accepted like this.
We worked what we could to avoid strike as there are many conditions that would make this difficult in these times with the ongoing Securitas strike, the Covid19 pandemic and the timing that has shifted all the way from May to now in December just before Christmas. But if we had to, we would, and this was clearly passed on to the counterpart.
The starting point of the mediation was the termination of the Special Agreement and a number of points in our agreement that they wanted to remove, among other things they wanted to introduce a 47% offshore bonus for all offshore employees and this was a firm requirement from them during the negotiations 20-21 October when it ended up with a break on the night of October 22nd.
Mediation started with this as a point of view on 2 December in Stavanger and a joint negotiating committee was appointed from SAFE centrally and with representatives from the clubs in Schlumberger, Oceaneering, Vetco Gray, Subsea7 and Weatherford.
After negotiations on overtime in the early morning 3rd of December, we reached an agreement with Schlumberger that the termination of our special agreement will be withdrawn, and it will be extended as today with a few exceptions:
- What we eventually had to agree to to avoid a strike was the introduction of an offshore bonus of NOK300,- per day which will be introduced from 01.06.2021. This was something we didn’t want but this is the same as we have for those who don’t work 2-4 and we had earlier. This is far better than the starting point which was 47% and as other groups in the company have accepted.
- We agreed that those who work on a 3-3 schedule shall have a 4 week off time per half year. This shall be agreed for the employees in Q1 for 2021 and at the latest at the end of the following years for the next years.
- We also got to keep 2-4 rotation for all groups that have this today and this will also apply to the groups that become ‘Rigless’ as a result of IOL3.
- We have also agreed to discuss a compensation scheme for those who are x-trained, and this should be completed by 01.06.2021. What this will be we do not know today but we will work forward to get some compensation for these groups as well.
In the key negotiations on the SAFE Well Service Agreement, agreement was agreed in, among other things, these points:
- The rates in the pay matrix increase with NOK1. 400,- from 01.06.2020 and the rates are further increased by NOK11.646,- from 01.01.2021 with some guidelines up against seniority slip, see SAFE protocol.
- The night shift allowance is increased to NOK90,- from 01.06.2020.
- The Holiday pay is increased to NOK2.060,- from 01.06.2020 and this shall also apply when the employee is registered at heliport or in transit.
- For courses abroad, the hour payment is increased from today 7.5 hours up to max 10 hours per day.
Further details of the central settlement are presented in the SAFE protocol at: safe.no.
We will start the local negotiations for onshore staff and those over the matrix next week where we include our own requirements list prepared by earlier Annual meetings and the SAFE club steering board into these negotiations.
We will see what we’re going to get here and separate info will be sent ut when this is in place.
Regards,
Negotiating committee,
Espen Johannessen – Chairman
Martin A. Skogland – Deputy Chairman