Labor & Employment Law

House OKs Whistleblower Protections for Offshore Oil/Gas Workers

By Mike Hall

Workers on offshore oil and gas rigs who report their safety concerns or violations would have the same whistleblower protections as U.S. rail workers under a bill that won House approval last week.

Currently, there is no federal law that protects oil and gas workers if they are retaliated against after they blow the whistle on workplace health and safety violations on the Outer Continental Shelf.

The BP Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 workers and is now the largest oil spill in U.S. history, surpassing the Exxon Valdez, spurred the legislation. Workers on that rig have told congressional committees and news outlets they had serious safety concerns before the explosion but were afraid they would lose their jobs if they spoke up.

Jason Anderson, who died when the rig exploded, told both his wife, Shelley, and father that working conditions were not safe on the Deepwater Horizon.  According to his widow’s testimony before the Senate?s Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Anderson was reluctant to talk about these concerns while on the rig and told her: ?I can?t talk about it now. The walls are too thin.?

She also told NBC News that his safety fears were so strong that not long before the explosion, he wrote a will and gave her instructions about getting his ?affairs in order.?

Anderson also told his father that BP was pushing the rig operators to stray from proper procedures to speed up the drilling and that he thought this was unsafe.

In a speech on the House floor shortly before the 315-93 vote, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said too often offshore employers:

short-change safety. They choose to pick production over the safety of their workers. They chose to pick cost-cutting over the safety of their workers. They chose to pick hurrying of the job over the safety of their workers.

In this economy and in any economy, many of these workers have to think, ?It?s a terrible choice, if I raise my hand on behalf of safety will I lose my job??

He said while many companies preach safety in public, it?s a different matter on the job. One offshore oil and gas firm, Miller said, provides workers with a special safety card and says if they are concerned about unsafe practices, they can lay that card down and halt work until the problem is corrected.

You know what supervisors tell employees that card is? A get-fired-card. Play that card, get fired.

The bill eventually won bipartisan support. But Republicans leaders tried to derail the vital safety legislation and instead put offshore workers under the far weaker provisions of the 40-year-old Occupational Safety and Health Act. The Offshore Oil and Gas Worker Whistleblower Protection Act (H.R. 5851) mirrors the far stronger whistleblower protections in the Robert C. Byrd Miner Safety and Health Act (H.R. 5663) that would update the OSHA whistleblower provisions. Said Miller:

Republicans are telling you that [oil rig workers] should take second-class protection under a 40-year-old law….They are entitled to a modern whistleblower law, a decent, modern whistleblower law with real protection.

H.R. 5851 extends whistleblower protections to employees working on the Outer Continental Shelf performing oil and gas exploration, drilling, production or oil spill cleanup. It would:

• Prohibit an employer from discharging or otherwise discriminating against an employee who reports safety concerns to the employer or to a federal or state government official.
• Protect employees who report injuries or unsafe conditions related to the offshore work, refuse to work based on a good-faith belief that the offshore work could cause injury or impairment or a spill.
• Establish a process for an employee to appeal an employer?s retaliation.
• Make workers eligible for reinstatement, back pay and compensatory and consequential damages.
• Require employers to post a notice that explains workers? whistleblower rights and provide training to the employees of these rights.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on August 03, 2010 (boomark / email).