The Deepwater Horizon oil platform burning as it sinks into the Gulf of Mexico.
Two months before the Deepwater Horizon rig, which BP leased, exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, British safety officials assessing conditions in the North Sea warned the platform's owner Transocean that its reported corporate culture of "blame" could be a serious safety hazard. In an unpublished report written for Transocean managers, about its operations off the coast of Scotland and Norway, Britain's Health and Safety Executive said that "the most prominent and consistent indicator of Transocean's organizational culture is one of discipline, blame and zero tolerance"; furthermore, the company gave "little consideration" to workers' behavior which could post serious safety hazards, like "fatigue, distraction, communication failures, or defective equipment," according to the internal report's six-page executive summary, which was shown to TIME on Monday. The Guardian, a British daily, had first reported on the document on Monday.
Some of the criticisms of Transocean from the North Sea oil workers include a lack of communication and an unwillingness to hear out employee concerns. Those charges seem close to those which some Deepwater Horizon workers have leveled against the company since the Gulf disaster. Deepwater Horizon exploded in flames in the dead of night on April 20, killing 11 workers — nine of them Transocean employees, the other two independent contractors — and spilling tens of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf.
Transocean's North Sea operations are even more extensive than those in the Gulf, although they are in far shallower water. The company, which owns the biggest fleet of offshore oil rigs in the world, maintains 18 rigs in the North Sea, compared with 12 in the Gulf, according to Transocean's website. For the British report, specialists in offshore oil drilling visited four North Sea rigs, and interviewed about 150 workers and managers; it handed the report to Transocean officials last February, according to Britain's Health and Safety Executive spokesman Jonathan Morgan. On more than one rig, says the report, workers told them that managers conducted "bullying, aggression, harassment, humiliation and intimidation." The report said workers were demoralized, had little respect for their supervisors, and were stressed — a factor which could cause "potential safety implications." When employees are bullied and harassed, they "feel unable to raise these issues" for fear that managers might turn the blame on them.
Despite the picture of workplace misery, the report also contains some positive comments about Transocean, including the impression that the company enjoys strong loyalty among many workers, who remain with the company for years. Transocean also received praised for launching several safety initiatives. Transocean spokesman Guy Cantwell said in a statement on Monday, emailed from Houston, said that the company "has demonstrated a commitment to fostering an organizational culture based on trust and respect that improves our safety and performance records." He said the British government report is "a key part of the company's philosophy of continuous review and improvement."
The Gulf of Mexico disaster gives the report huge resonance. For months, BP has attempted to pin the blame for the disaster on the Transocean rig itself. In U.S. Senate hearings last May, Transocean CEO Steven Newman rejected that argument, saying that "offshore oil and gas production projects begin and end with the operator." Yet in the North Sea — where BP also leases some Transocean rigs — Transocean's safety manuals were in short supply on the rigs the British government team visited, according to the government report; and those which were available were out of date. If rig workers wanted to complain, or alert the top brass about problems, there were few people to whom to talk: Transocean's senior officials stayed on dry land, venturing offshore on "VIP trips with superficial tours of the rig," says the report. And even offshore, Transocean had few safety representatives there, and those which were offshore "met infrequently."
The criticisms were little surprise to union leader Jake Molloy, regional organizer for offshore oil workers in Scotland for Britain's National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, who calls Transocean "one of the worst offenders" in instilling safe workplace procedures on its rigs. "When an incident occurs you should learn from it, but Transocean seeks to punish those people and it gets really ugly." Three Transocean workers on North Sea rigs recently settled wrongful dismissal lawsuits out of court. The details are secret under the terms of the agreement. But Molloy says the more serious effects of Transocean's dismissals are on those workers who remain after their colleagues are fired. "They are much less likely to report any accidents, or get involved in calling time outs for safety," Molloy says. "Inevitably we're going to end up with a big bang, accidents with the potential for major injuries or fatalities," he says. Whether in the North Sea, the Gulf or elsewhere.