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New pay deal won by striking UK divers
15 November 2006
More than 900 divers and support staff in the UK, who walked out on strike over pay on 1 November, last week voted overwhelmingly to accept a new wage offer. The employers’ pay package gives workers a cumulative 44.7 per cent increase over two years.
North Sea oil and gas personnel, members of the ITF-affiliated National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), voted 84 per cent in favour of accepting the deal on 10 November.
The new package includes an immediate increase of 25 per cent on all rates, with a further five per cent on new rates next April.
The seven employer signatories to the deal also agreed to pay eight bank holidays, up from four previously, and each has undertaken to agree proper bargaining structures with the union, although pay will continue to be negotiated collectively.
The deal prompted an immediate return to work.
"By any standard this is a tremendous victory for a group of workers who have displayed grit, determination and complete solidarity in their campaign to win a fair pay increase," said RMT General Secretary Bob Crow.
The ITF and its affiliates lent their backing to the divers’ dispute; unions such as the Indonesian Seafarers’ Union and the Maritime Union of Australia sent messages of support.
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