Paying for the Piper: Capital and Labour in Britain's Offshore Oil Industry

by Charles Woolfson, John Foster, Matthais Beck

This book is an appraisal of current offshore industrial relations, and safety regulations instituted after the 1988 Alpha disaster in the North Sea. This text discusses the oil industry's attempts to contain subsequent, unwelcome regulatory interference, and examines the fraught history of trade unionism in the offshore industry, the conflict over health and safety, and the sometimes brutal struggle over union rights as the workforce attempted to achieve a collective voice in the reshaping of the safety and production environment. The authors conclude that, as yet, offshore safety has been little, or not at all, improved.

624 pages, Hardcover

First published January 2, 1997