The North Sea oil industry needs to take a "reality check" and understand that current shifts which amount to staff working 20 weeks a year are no longer sustainable, according to one of the North Sea's biggest employers.
Unions have complained that changes in shift patterns from the current two weeks offshore followed by three weeks of leave to three on, three off will lead to longer hours and compromise safety.
But Dave Stewart, managing director of Wood Group UK which employs 12,000 workers including 5,000 offshore, said the industry has been working "too inefficiently for too long".
"Half of the employees work two on, three off offshore rotation which is effectively 20 weeks a year," he said at an oil and gas summit in Aberdeen.
"There has been a decline in production efficiency. Some see two on, three off as quite inefficient because of five-shift rota patterns.
"My own take on it is that the industry has been working too inefficiently for too long and those challenges have to be taken on board."
John Taylor, regional industrial officer for Unite the union, said recent shift changes and redundancies were announced without consultation, and called for greater engagement from the industry on future changes.
"You cannot have a situation where you make people redundant, force people to work longer hours, cut back on maintenance - we already have a maintenance problem - and say that you are working safely onshore," he said.
"That is totally, utterly unachievable."
Mr Stewart said: "I fully agree with John's point that we have to engage the workforce in that discussion.
"But I think we have to get a reality check and I don't think it's unreasonable to be asked to work more than 20 weeks a year."
Malcolm Webb, chief executive of industry body Oil & Gas UK, said: "While there is never any room for complacency on safety, I feel confident that there will not be any compromise on safety during this downturn.
"In any event, it makes absolutely no business sense for that to happen."
Mr Webb added: "Of course we need to take the workforce with us.
"In the end it all comes down to people, so it's hugely important that we do that.
"I don't know about individual cases but what I do know is that this is an industry that values its workforce, is approaching this whole difficult situation of a reduction of numbers - and there are going to have to be some people who are going to lose their jobs as a result of this - it's being done, as far as I can see, in a proper and sensitive way and engaging the workforce.
"I fully agree that that is the way that it must be done."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article