Labor Court agrees with our local Saipem club

torsdag 23. april 2020

A recent Labor Court ruling acquitted Saipem regarding a breach of the Tariff, around layoffs or termination, just as Industri Energi’s local club SEA has argued all along.

Robert de Vries
Robert de Vries

The basis for the case, discussion took place locally in 2000, Saipem Employees Association (SEA) and the company Saipem SpA Norway Branch agreed that Norwegian pay and working conditions should apply to Italian employees on the Norwegian continental shelf. However, the Italians could not be employed directly by Saipem Norway; instead, they were employed through a rental company NES previously known as RC Consultants.

-When there was talk of layoffs in Saipem during the previous oil downturn, Safe used this as an argument to recruitment members and argued that the Italians in the NES should be kicked out first, whilst we always maintained they should not, says Robert de Vries, who is a club leader in Industri Energi, Saipem.

The local Safe Club used this locally and gained dozens of members from Industri Energi because of this case.

Safe and DSO chose to take a case in the Labor Court last year, but then the judge strongly urged the parties to find a solution outside the judicial system. That did not happen and the case came up before the Labor Court again this year.

«The question in the case was whether it is unlawful that the seniority assessment for selection on termination or termination of Saipem Drilling Norway AS includes employees hired from the company NES Global Offshore AS».

The recent Labor Court ruling acquitted Saipem of the claim. The verdict is unanimous and cannot be appealed.

The verdict was expected, and as our club has stated all along. «This case should never have been brought before the judicial system and in reality has only ever been propaganda and an infinite way of running a recruit campaign,» says Club Leader Robert de Vries.