How many would join the union?

[James McLauchlan]

……………. and Europe will use the Island as an immigration and prison dumping ground for nuclear waste 😯

To mimic some people around here…….

Oh well, if that is going to happen anyway then it’s not worth saying or doing anything to stop the inevitable then, is it?

……..and there was me ( as an ex-diver) thinking that, if the majority of ROV got together and voted with their feet, it might make a difference. Buggered if I know where I got that idea from 😉

Those objecting to the idea of collective bargaining
One thing that jacks me off is that they argue against the idea yet offer no alternative. As divers we had that in the early days too.

So, on the one hand, we have a bunch of proactive people trying to make a difference and on the other hand we have people that are suggesting that collective bargaining will not solve the problem, yet it did with the divers
I’ll mention divers as often as I wish, because I was one. I was in the NUS (later RMT) and what we did then made a huge difference as you can clearly still see today! So, don’t try and convince me that the collective bargaining, in the Subsea sector, can’t help us when it clearly can… but only when it has the right people in sufficient numbers as members.

I’ll listen to any objection to any plan, as long as a solution is offered by way of supporting that objection, but please don’t argue against an initiative unless you have a viable alternative. Believe it or not, doing nothing! is not a viable alternative in my books.

To those of you still arguing against the ROV union initiative
Come up with an alternative plan to support your argument and make a difference, or simply fade away because if nothing is done your jobs will imply fade away also.

or….. consider ……..

How much are you being paid a year? 50 60 70 80k a year?
To get where you are today you started as a trainee once didn’t you?
That would no longer be an option under the do nothing principle.

The union states quite clearly that members have the following benefits:
Legal assistance when you need it, Accident benefit, Death benefit, Orphan benefit, Credit cards, Loans,

• Legal Services

Advice on all work-related and union matters.
Advice on non-work related legal queries.
For those arrested by the police or questioned under caution.

• Accident Benefit

Accident benefit of ten times your membership dues per week for up to 26 weeks is payable if the member is injured in the course of employment or travelling to or from work. The benefit is payable at the end of the incapacity, or after 26 weeks, whichever is the sooner.

• Death Grant

A Death Grant of £500 is payable to the nearest relative or legal representative if a member dies through any cause prior to retirement.

• Orphan Benefit

Orphan benefit of £10 per week per child up to 16 years of age, and £12.75 per week per child continuing to receive full-time education from 16 up to 22 years of age, is payable on a member’s death.

• Retirement Benefit

RMT Retirement Benefit is payable to members on retirement at normal age, or earlier if permanently incapacitated due to ill health or retired under redundancy and resettlement arrangements when over 55 years of age. Retirement Benefit is calculated at the rate of £3 for each completed year’s membership between 1 January 1965 and 31 August 2003 (and completed years’ membership of the Disablement Fund prior to 1965), and at £5 for each completed year of membership after 1 September 2003.

• Permanent Downgrading or Demotion Benefit

Benefit of £300 is payable to RMT members, subject to rule, on permanent downgrading or demotion due to personal accident, sicknessor physical defect.

• Credit and Loans/Facilities

RMT Credit Union Ltd – set up by RMT members to provide accessible savings and affordable loans to RMT members.
Please note: From February 1, 2008 the Credit Union loan rate will revert to the standard rate of 12.68% APR for all new loan applications. Our loan rates remain extremely competitive compared to the high street banks and other profit-making companies.

The union does not promise to protect jobs
It’s organisers hope that if members want the chance of having some form of protection and representation they will join in numbers and give the union organisers sufficient bargaining power to negotiate with their employers. They currently have the same people in place now that negotiate the divers agreement.

The rest is up to you! – Nobody is going to hand it to you on a plate.

Plan a)
Get on-board for any reason but, for sure, joining will add your name to the ever growing ROV members list and one day, even though you did nothing other than join and pay monthly fees (how much effort does that take?), you’ll wake up and realise that you still have a job and that there is a Subsea agreement in place protecting your employment conditions and pay in the same manner that the divers have enjoyed for years.

Plan b) Do absolutely nothing!
Trouble is I can’t see that helping anybody can you?

When the NUS/RMT union and it’s members finally got an offshore divers agreement in place
Interestingly the dissenters (non union members) objected in similar ways to what we are seeing here, but you know what?
Once the agreement was in force they accepted the better benefits and pay and didn’t object from that point onwards.
Not one of them insisted that they stay on pre-agreement conditions and pay because quite there simply were no conditions in place, and the pay was yo-yo’ing around the way we see happening to the Subsea sector now.

[luckyjim37]

There has been a lot of talk regarding the divers agreement thing that they negotiated.

Out of utter curiosity is there any sort of draft agreement in place yet for the ROV industry and if so what kind of protection is being thought of for agency workers which make up a big percentage of the ROV staff being used within the industry.

Being deliberately a pain aside if there is nothing within this agreement to assist/support agency workers then there is no point in signing up to it. The other major concern I have is if the payrate is set to high then a lot of agencies workers may end up seeing massive differences in day rates between working in and out of the North sea area. I.E. you may get £450 a day in the north sea but then find working in Egypt for example the rate might drop to say £300 a day as employers try to make back some of the wage bill by cutting rates outside of the North sea and some of the other areas with these kind of agreements.
This would make any financial planning very difficult due to potential earnings for the year being potentially very varied.

Now I can already hear the normal voices saying nobody would work for that etc. However once every job in the North sea is filled then as a day rate agency worker eventually you have to take what is on offer and that could be costly.

I agree it would probably get rid of some of the dross inside the North sea but at the same time every pilot good or bad is in an agreement negotiation a number and as everyone is saying numbers matter.

[James McLauchlan]

There has been a lot of talk regarding the divers agreement thing that they negotiated.

Well spotted! I’d love to compare it with another subsea vocational group if you would be kind enough to suggest a more apt one?
But why compare at all? How about we work jointly with them? You see what I mean by this later in this post.

Out of utter curiosity is there any sort of draft agreement in place yet for the ROV industry

Yes, there is a draft agreement in existence. It was started last year in the OILC/RMT union members board in this forum. For obvious reasons non union members wouldn’t have seen it, as it was a document being developed by union members to help create a union agreement between the union and the employers. I see no reason why those that choose (quite freely) not to be part of the OILC branch of the RMT should have any information or knowledge on such an agreement until it comes into force. Join and you are welcome to have your say. Others may disagree.

For equally obvious reasons, the framework was based on the divers agreement. Due consideration was given to it being based around another Subsea vocational agreement but there isn’t one. So, why re-invent the wheel when the basic shape is there already?
The draft ROV agreement has now been transferred over to the union ROV board at the OILC EiE forum: Here
The ROV agreement has recently been locked against further development, pending the outcome of a poll currently running (in the Subsea general board which heads ROV, Diving, Inspection and Survey) on whether a combined blanket Subsea agreement should be adopted to cover all those related to Subsea operations. The poll is open to all Subsea Forum members. The results are currently weighted in favour of a joint blanket agreement.
The basic idea of a Subsea blanket agreement is that ROV and Diving (there’s the ‘D’ word again) work collectively for bargaining power and also add in, and thus offer some form of protection, those vocations that do not have sufficient numbers to do so on a stand alone basis (such as Inspection co-ordinators). The feeling is that if ROV and Diving join forces that would tip the scale overall.

The blanket agreement idea is Subsea orientated.
I see no issue with adding Subsea Inspection co-ordinators into the agreement as they are always involved with Subsea operations be it an ROV or Diving project.
The problem with adding riggers into such an agreement, is already partly solved as they are already party to the divers agreement. It currently only covers them when they are working on Diving projects (not ROV projects – yet)..plus Riggers are not covered by the agreement if they are working on a drill rig or platform, where they are not part of the Subsea team.
The same would have to apply to Survey.

……..and if so what kind of protection is being thought of for agency workers which make up a big percentage of the ROV staff being used within the industry.

Being deliberately a pain aside if there is nothing within this agreement to assist/support agency workers then there is no point in signing up to it.

Think out of the box a little eh?
Divers (Bugger! I used the ‘D’ word again… sorry) are day rate direct which isn’t that far removed from being agency. We (ROV and Divers) are all freelance in that respect.
When you have an agreed day rate…. that is the offshore rate you receive whether you are agency or not.
What agencies get out of it is up to them to negotiate with the operators in addition to the agreed rate that you receive.

The rate would be clearly written in black and white in the agreement. If you are not getting that rate offshore then they are in breach of the agreement. You call the union, they call your employer (for that job). If they don’t correct the issue the union will highlight the error of their ways to the oil company (I have been on a job where this happened so have seen the results first hand)… a lot of back peddling starts around that point in time. The methodology is simple enough.

Right now (with no agreement in place) agencies agree any old rate with the operators and try to sell it to the people on their books. It seems that the operators are applying pressure to push rates down and some agencies are buckling, they in turn then put pressure on the agency guys to take the lower rates and so it goes on… the Yo-Yo effect mentioned in my last post.

The other major concern I have is if the payrate is set to high then a lot of agencies workers may end up seeing massive differences in day rates between working in and out of the North sea area. I.E. you may get £450 a day in the north sea but then find working in Egypt for example the rate might drop to say £300 a day as employers try to make back some of the wage bill by cutting rates outside of the North sea and some of the other areas with these kind of agreements.
This would make any financial planning very difficult due to potential earnings for the year being potentially very varied.

Better ROV types will hang out where the money is for sure. If there are not enough jobs to go around then there are too many ROV peeps chasing work. In time natural selection will take care of that.
Plus with agreed UK rates in place you will not see any (less capable) foreign nationals being employed in the North sea.
As for varied annual income due to (in your exact words) "payrate is set to high" in the UK sector. The rate would not be set too high. It would be set at an appropriate level that the industry can sustain.
Again… as a divers (there’s that word again), guys would work in the North sea and overseas, rates would vary considerably but if you follow a similar pattern year by year.. North Sea in the UK summer and overseas in the UK winter, your annual income would settle on an average and therefore does not fluctuate that much.

………but at the same time every pilot good or bad is in an agreement negotiation a number and as everyone is saying numbers matter.

Sorry, I didn’t get that bit at all.

[Savante]

sounds like good progress indeed !

[Scott Beveridge]

Hi all,

Numbers folks….. Think of it this way, we take a chance by becoming dayraters (a bit of a gamble) soooo, why not take a chance and become a Yuni0n member (even us non-UK citizens)?????

[Andy Shiers]

Unless of course you think your job is on tender hooks because you don’t have the experience 🙂
But you know……………… It’s a small industry 😀
Put ya money where your mouth is !

[Scott Beveridge]

AND…. slack season is coming up again Lost…. Got no work lads? Retainers would be nice!!!!! Wouldn’t they???

Have any of us talked about insurance woes? The company I presently work for has good coverage. Anyone else (perhaps a new thread – in fact, I’ll do that now.)

[Craig Thorngren]

James, Scot, Savante, Lostboy and all the other Pro RMT Uni0n folks…

I like many others that I’ve talked with are not "anti-uni0n", we are however very much anti RMT Uni0n. Collective bargaining is a good thing for the workers, the problem is all of the baggage RMT brings with it. Unfortunately if anyone does a little research into the RMT, they’ll see that they are not about protecting jobs, collective bargaining, but advancing a political agenda. An agenda that supports abortion on demand, appeasing terrorists and supporting marxism.

So rather than James "a" or "b" choice, how about "c"… Band together and form your own collective bargaining group without all the political BS… I think you’d find a lot more people would be willing to support that, than having no voice or say in the RMT…

Chief

[Scott Beveridge]

James, Scot, Savante, Lostboy and all the other Pro RMT Uni0n folks…

I like many others that I’ve talked with are not "anti-uni0n", we are however very much anti RMT Uni0n. Collective bargaining is a good thing for the workers, the problem is all of the baggage RMT brings with it. Unfortunately if anyone does a little research into the RMT, they’ll see that they are not about protecting jobs, collective bargaining, but advancing a political agenda. An agenda that supports abortion on demand, appeasing terrorists and supporting marxism.

So rather than James "a" or "b" choice, how about "c"… Band together and form your own collective bargaining group without all the political BS… I think you’d find a lot more people would be willing to support that, than having no voice or say in the RMT…

Chief

Hey dude… (pm me)…

You are one of the very few people that have mentioned this – well done…. you have caught our hints (mostly mine) If you read back in old threads, I was hinting that direction… Any takers, a few per region????

[Savante]

James, Scot, Savante, Lostboy and all the other Pro RMT Uni0n folks…

Actually I’m decidedly anti-union. It’s incompatible with my role offshore as I have had to face off with Norwegian union types. Wouldn’t work. 😆

But I do think that the attempts to generate a set of "minimum contracting standards", especially using consensus agreement [herding cats] from a large pool of ROVers, is worth recognition and a fair bit of respect too.

[Andy Shiers]

Well Chief , I like the sound of what you are saying 🙂
I did not wish to join the union but due to the present "Political" situation and Recession and the flooding of the Industry of Non-discrypt "Muppets" 😯 Have forced me to join "A" union which the RMT appear to be the only one to take on our cause. I do not have the time or the clout or enough knowledge on the wheeling and dealing of cooperate management. I said right from the start That I would join a ROV Union ,maybe if James had one . I would join 😀
Unfortunately The RMT is the only one at the momento.
Would you care to start up a union Chief ?

[Andy Shiers]

Oh , By the way 🙂
Unions are about the collective , By the people for the people 8)
That is part of marxism 😆 You had me laughing there 😆
Being a capitalist and a patriot I see paying a Union in order to get what I want as the right thing to do 😀
A bit selfish really , I know 😕 But If this union is the only one that has the balls to take on the Oil Giants , then , I’m All for it ! 😈

[James McLauchlan]

James, Scot, Savante, Lostboy and all the other Pro RMT Uni0n folks…

I have said this before and I will say it again. I am not Pro RMT union.
I am, however, pro collective bargaining through the initiative set up by members of the OILC branch of the RMT. The OILC branch is not a typical representation of the RMT and it’s political workings! The OILC was formed to represent workers in the offshore energy sector. The RMT was never formed to do that.

So rather than James "a" or "b" choice, how about "c"… Band together and form your own collective bargaining group without all the political BS… I think you’d find a lot more people would be willing to support that, than having no voice or say in the RMT…

This is way off topic and verging on hijacking. This thread is nothing to do with whether we should form an ROV association or whatever… if you want to discuss that I have started another thread HERE.

Plus …… Look at the way that suggestion was written!
Not…
form our own collective bargaining group
but….
Form your own collective bargaining group

So the suggestion being made is by someone that does not actually view themselves as being part of the very group they are suggesting.

A new topic and poll has been added on the above idea.

If you wish to discuss forming an ROV association (or whatever) you may do so HERE

Please continue to discuss along the original lines of this thread from this point forward……….

[James McLauchlan]

I am endeavouring to get some more numbers out of the OILC branch organisers on progress made so far on the number of ROV personnel now in the RMT.

Some of you may be somewhat surprised to know that in the last 12 months over 500 people (offshore energy workers) have joined the OILC branch of the RMT. Of course they are not all subsea but I do know that a significant number of ROV have flooded into the branch after SS7’s recent policies.

This implies that the branch will become one of the most powerful branches in the RMT and is be purely focused on the offshore energy sector. No RMT trains and taxi driver stuff being discussed there!

As far as the OILC EiE forum goes (this is only the forum mind you) People have to sign up to the forum, they are not automatically added when they join the OILC branch of the RMT.
What I can tell you is that there are now

Total OILC branch Forum members: 134

Total ROV Forum members: 44

[mustafa bigen]

Is the RMT still interested in the offshore industry? I remember a big push to get everyone in and get the ball rolling. Is it just me or has it lost more momentum than a sub hitting the deck. What have I gained for however much a month for the last year? Is there really a place for a union in the rov world? Because from how I see it there hasn’t been much drive from the union side or maybe I’m miss informed and it’s all gone over my head during my last returm. I took the steps, singed the forms and paid the money but haven’t seen any real results. Not a happy customer.

[Author]

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