Industri Energi decided to break off talks on pay and conditions with Norwegian Oil & Gas (Norog) late on Tuesday after refusing to accept the latter’s offer, the industry association said in a statement.
Separate talks with three other unions – Safe, Parat and Negotia – were put on hold by Norog as they requested more time to consider the offer on the table. These talks will resume after local unions negotiate their own deals, the Safe union said in a statement.
The negotiations with Industri Energi affect about 5000 employees working for oil companies including BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Statoil, Wintershall and Lundin Petroleum.
They will become the fourth round of talks to head for arbitration after the earlier breakdown of negotiations involving platform workers, oil service employees and onshore supply base personnel, with the first set of mandatory mediation talks scheduled for 16 to 17 June.
Failure to achieve an agreement at arbitration could result in a repeat of the damaging offshore strike in 2012 that crippled Norway’s oil and gas production.
04 June 2014, News Wires – The largest union representing onshore oil workers in Norway has failed to reach agreement with employers in the fourth failure of wage talks that will now be referred to state mediation.
