Edinburgh Napier University

  Whilst oil prices fluctuate and oil companies perceive the North Sea to be too expensive to drill (Shepherd, 2016) decommissioning plans have been formulated by Government and employer taskforces. These groups have tended to focus on technical and fiscal challenges facing the industry and the need for state financial support to cover the costs of decommissioning. Workers voices have largely been missing from these debates on the future of the industry. Press and union reports suggest that job security, terms and conditions and career prospects have all been adversely affected (OCG, 2016). Estimates are that roughly a third of the workforce (120,000 - 185,000) have suffered job losses between 2014-2017 (The Guardian 2017; BBC 2016) However to date there has been little scholarly consideration of the impact of these changes and any others which may be occurring from the perspective of workers. Furthermore there has been little explicit consideration of the support needs of workers for finding new and/or alternative employment. This paper seeks to address that gap by exploring firstly, how the declining employment opportunities within the Scottish oil industry has affected the lives of workers and secondly, how workers have responded to declining opportunities within the sector. We argue that the absence of workers’ voice in policy discussions about how best to safeguard the strategically important oil and gas industry and utilise their skills has meant that other stakeholders’ interests have been privileged. Drawing from in depth oral history interviews with off shore oil workers, employed within the industry during the previous two years, this paper presents initial findings on how declining production levels have affected work and employment. The paper seeks to begin the process of influencing Scottish Government, and employers’ policy towards managing the decline of the industry in a manner that is more sensitive to the needs of the working population. BBC (2016) ‘Oil sector job losses ‘to reach 120,000 by end of year’. Available at.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-36491937. Accessed on 13/09/2016. OCG (2016) ‘Enough is enough’ The Bulletin of the off-shore energy branch of RMT, Issue 24, Spring. Shepherd M (2016) ‘Oil Strike North Sea: A first hand history of North Sea Oil’. Luath Press Ltd, Edinburgh. The Guardian (2017) ‘North sea oil and gas sector losing thousands of jobs, survey shows.’ Wed 6th September 2017. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/06/north-sea-oil-gas-jobs-oil-price. Accessed 27/10/17.