A report from IRIS and Fafo concerning arrangements for employee participation confirms what the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway has observed in its audits in recent years. The formal conditions for safety delegates and working environment committees (AMUs) exist, but in practice employee representatives face various challenges in the arrangements for employee participation.
The report identifies the following key features:
- The involvement of employee representatives in HSE cases arrives too late.
- Insufficient time is allocated to safety work.
- Lack of training/expertise among safety delegates and AMU members.
- Employee participation becomes weaker as the contract chains lengthen.
- HSE departments taking over aspects of the safety service’s role.
Established routines, forums and collaborative relationships are under pressure, and this is reinforced through change processes in the industry. All the above emerges from the report based on the Employee participation in the petroleum industry and on large construction sites research project, carried out by IRIS and Fafo on behalf of the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway and the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority.