Blood and oil

...Labor officials and workers throughout the world maintain that injured workers generally are fired immediately...

...Now they have no strikes, no laborers, no assets, no fires, no sabotage...

...In calculating compensation for accidents, these variations are crucial...

...When the cartel companies took advantage of the Suez Canel shutdown to raise shipping costs on exporters, the Venezuelan congress voted to increase oil company tax rates and raise oil price levels unilaterally...

...If they are lucky, they are paid several months' salary as compensation...

...There are innumerable minor accidents as well...

...Moths and mosquitoes circled lazily in the floodlamps strung across the huge crane boom which dominated the barge...

...Industry officials maintain that climatic conditions abroad are often more difficult than in American waters...

...In Nigeria, a country which receives $9 billion annually from oil sales, the law provides a maximum disability payment for injured offshore workers of $5,000 and maximum survivor benefits of $2,000...

...Shocked, the doctor argued that Sanchez could die without immediate treatmerit...

...A large memorial now stands in the cemetery of Mene Grande commemorating the five workers killed in the ensuing melee...

...It was, he thought, a disagreeable place from which to greet the dawn: far from the birds chirping behind his house in Ojeda, far from the morning sounds of his six children wandering in sleepily for breakfast, far from the raucous bars in Lagunillas, far from all those enjoyable things which this job helped make possible...

...They arrived accompanied by the directors of personnel for the four largest companies, and immediately began firing into the crowd...

...Across the lake other lights could be seen, each marking one of the 5,000 production platforms fanned out along the shoreline...

...The controlling companies are overwhelmingly American...

...The bill established indemnity payments to the operating companies of over one trillion dollars in tax-free bonds...

...Workmen's cottages are lined up along the narrow streets like disciplined soldiers awaiting the firing squad...

...when he attempted to do so, it exploded...

...The Jones Act, a 1937 maritime law designed to protect foreign sailors aboard American ships, has been applied recently in behalf of foreign offshore workers employed on mobile drilling equipment...

...But an examination of available statistics and interviews with industry observers indicate that foreign workers are even more likely to suffer serious injury or death than their American counterparts— despite the fact that most offshore workers are employed by American companies, use the same American equipment under similar circumstances, and operate under American supervisors...

...As it now stands, in addition to the bonds for capital investment, the major companies hold service contracts which guarantee them Venezuela's oil exports on favorable terms...

...But what help can a foreign offshore worker expect from his American employer if he is injured...

...Research for this article was assisted by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism...

...A Nigerian federal prosecutor says there is one serious accident per day in the slipshod offshore fields near Warri and Port Harcdurt...

...Shortly after the contracts were signed, the president of Shell in Venezuela received a medal from Queen Julianna of Holland for his exemplary service to the Dutch economy...

...As the lust for energy grew and oilfield technology was employed in more and more hostile physical (and less sophisticated political) environments, a once risky blue-collar occupation became a full-fledged industrial killer...

...After phoning ahead to arrange for a surgical team, the doctor contacted the chief of industrial relations for Loffland Brothers, Oswaldo Sevillano, who agreed to meet them at the Policlinica in Maracaibo...

...Heli Ramon Sanchez finally arrived at the government Hospital General del Sur at 1:00 p.m., seven hours after the accident occurred...

...The situation prompted one contractor to remark, "It's cheaper to kill than to maim...

...The Philippines provide a maximum of $ 1,600 in each category, Ghana $1,200, Argentina $1,000, Thailand $1,400, and Sri Lanka $1,900...

...law to sue their employer in American courts and collect compensation at prevailing American standards...

...As one hardened veteran put it, "Among the old-timers in this business, fingers are as rare as hen's teeth...

...Two months later the first union was successfully organized at Cabimas, and by the next year a large strike was called...

...Offshore divers' fatality rates are thirty-three times greater than coal mining, the association has determined, and include a remarkable 1 per cent annual death rate in the North Sea...

...R.M...

...It's just as dangerous off Alaska as out in the North Sea, but look at who's dying," he says...

...The company gave him two months' salary ($250) and fired him...

...Sanchez then was stretched out on the operating table under a bright lamp...

...A thin sheen of morning mist steamed off the bulbs, and, as always, the pounding of drilling machinery roared in his ears...

...Sevillano insisted that Sanchez be moved and finally ordered the doctor— who served under him as company physician—to send Sanchez to the public hospital...

...Though Manangkalangi's were relatively high, wages paid to most foreign workers by American companies are unrelated to the pay scale of Americans performing the same tasks...

...Because industry manpower needs fluctuate constantly, from sixty-five workers in early exploration stages to 2,300 in a major production effort, it is impossible to determine the exact number of worldwide offshore workers...

...When the military government fell in 1958 and the international oil companies renewed their efforts to reduce world production, Venezuela organized a national commission on hydrocarbons to regulate the country's participation in the industry—thus preparing the way for a series of maneuvers designed to gain control of the resources...

...More than one government has fallen for attempting to oppose the international petroleum companies...

...Or the parties may sue the employer based upon loss of economic support (over the working lifetime of the injured), loss of care and counsel, and damages for psychological anguish...

...The reason given for dismissal usually is that the employe is no longer able to fulfill his duties— ignoring, of course, that it was while fulfilling those duties that the worker was disabled...

...political campaigns (at least $5 million to Richard Nixon alone in 1972), such companies as Gulf, Exxon, Mobil, Texaco, the various foreign Es-sos, and Aramco have contributed at least $9 million to pro-Arab organizations attempting to influence American foreign policy and public opinion...

...By draining capital from local economies (via limited-resource-based profits spirited away to other countries) the multinationals retard local development abroad, pit one nation's labor force against another's, and force capital-hungry foreign governments into adversary relationships with their own native workers— pleading all the while that American workers have "priced themselves out of the marketplace...

...After arriving in the outboard boat, Heli Sanchez was taken by car to the Ojeda clinic and a doctor employed by Loffland Brothers of Venezuela was called...

...tender vessel personnel in Indonesia earn about $100 per month, and Nigerian offshore floormen earn about $150 per month...

...Considering how much these companies, their affiliates, and their subcontractors are willing to contribute to the political process, one might assume that their interest in the public well-being would extend to their own employes—particularly those injured or killed amassing the profits which permit such contributions...

...Union officials believe the difference in offshore safety is due to corporate policies and a lack of enforced safety standards...

...Determining that Sanchez's injuries were too serious to be treated at the ill-equipped clinic, the doctor ordered him transferred once again to the Policlinica de Adolf or d'Empairo in Maracaibo— about an hour's drive away...

...Politically, then, U.S...

...When an American or European is injured here in Venezuela, a helicopter is dispatched to fly him back to the big hospitals in Mara-caibo...

...The work was hot, dangerous, and hard...

...Any discussion of international compensation inevitably involves two points: How much was the worker earning and what government-sponsored social security mechanisms operate on his behalf...

...Civil authorities arrested the strike leaders and harassed union officials through the end of World War II...

...Oil industry officials, aghast at their vulnerability to these suits, have begun lobbying Congress to exclude foreign offshore workers from the Jones Act...

...Other court decisions have allowed the plaintiff to sue through a foreign subcontractor to reach the American primary employer—the big oil companies...

...But perhaps more important is that the American oil industry has learned that tax advantages, lack of labor problems, lack of safety standards, and lack of regulatory restraints have made the oil business abroad profoundly more profitable than back at home...

...The top 298 U.S.-based multinationals earn 40 per cent of their entire net profits abroad...

...Often even those regulations are tempered by intensive industry lobbying...

...He died fifteen minutes later...

...The move eventually stimulated other producers to do likewise in 1973—thus launching the "energy crisis" era though, ironically, Venezuela remained aloof from the Arab-backed embargo when it occurred...

...On orders of dictator Juan Vicente Gomez, armed federal troops were dispatched to the scene...

...The nationalization system is now being criticized within Venezuela as a "gift" to Exxon and Shell...

...According to the ILO, foreign workers are twenty times more likely to be killed and sixty times more likely to be injured...

...The machinery pounded on, its rhythm barely disturbed by the accident, and within a little while the moths were circling off to wherever moths go when the sun comes up...

...Most sources place the figure at between 350,000 and 400,000...

...Nowhere is this more apparent than in what is known as the international offshore industry...

...Exploration, drilling, production, transport, and refining of crude oil all have inherent risks...

...Often medical expenses are not even reimbursed...

...The second argument used by oil industry lobbyists is more serious, for it speaks to a concern which could divide us from our own conscience through economic fear...

...companies...

...Philip Agee has reported that one of his routine tasks as a CIA agent was to investigate prospective foreign employes of large corporations abroad to guard against those-with left-wing associations...

...Government in exerting influence abroad, nor have they been reluctant to use their own corporate cash...

...On the day of his death, workers in the Maracaibo region went on a rampage, killing and beating many directors and senior staff of the oil companies...

...Struck by several pieces of metal, he suffered severe lacerations in the groin and was left sterile, impotent, and with complications which kept him from working for several years...

...Small wonder that these foreign governments, and our own, become partners with the multinational oil interests in maximizing production and minimizing any potential obstacles...

...Between 1945 and 1948, Venezuela implemented a fifty-fifty split of company profits with the government, but a military coup in 1948 forestalled further labor and nationalization fervor for nearly a decade...

...In the words of Gera-simo Chavez, general secretary of the largest oil workers union, "Before nationalization Creole [Exxon] had thousands of laborers, significant investments in Venezuela, tax liability, and so forth...

...In 1970, oil accounted for 30 per cent of all American overseas investments, 40 per cent of all American investments in developing countries, and 60 per cent of all American earnings from the Third World...

...In many ports of the world unionization is hampered not only by the overt opposition of the oil companies and local governments, but by the covert opposition of the United States Government...

...One-third of the top twenty countries producing offshore oil have outlawed all unions...

...Even though the cost of living may be lower in Third World nations, prevailing standards still do not meet a local worker's needs...

...Local laws requiring that resource concessions go only to Venezuelan citizens were circumvented with impunity...

...But would it not be cheaper—to say nothing of more moral—to eliminate the high cost of accident compensation through better safety standards, better training, better on-site medical facilities, and more carefully monitored production and manufacturing...

...stars when the massive crane's boom suddenly fell, crushing him into the deck...

...It is also true that foreign workers do seek out these jobs, mainly because of local unemployment and even lower wage scales in local industry...

...About one-third of the total assets of American chemical and pharmaceutical industries, about 40 per cent of the consumer-goods industries, and about 75 per cent of the electronics industry are now located overseas...

...The award is made by judge or jury and is without statutory limitations...

...After a heated dispute, the doctor agreed...

...In two words: not much...

...Salaries inconceivable in American terms are commonplace throughout the oil patch: Imported Pakistanis in the Middle East earn $5 to $7 per day...

...Workers hoping to improve offshore safety standards are presented essentially with only three choices...

...Although accurate statistics are difficult to come by, both because of the multinational character of the workforce and the secretiveness of the companies involved, offshore accident horror stories abound...

...Then they carefully loaded him into an open outboard for the trip to shore...

...Overseas, suits against an employer are virtually unheard of and survivors' benefits almost nonexistent...

...All they have is the oil...

...But of the top ten offshore oil producing countries, half are dictatorships heavily dependent upon American military and financial assistance...

...Even major advances in technology have done little to reduce the work hazards of the industry...

...multinationals (in various venture combinations), most rigs are owned and operated by American companies, most contracting companies are American-owned, most patents are held by American manufacturers, and most of the machinery is sold by American dealers...

...It isn't Americans, it's Venezuelans and Nigerians and Brazilians and all the rest...

...Most of the product is purchased by U.S...

...Ashland Oil Company admitted before the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1977 to making more than $500,000 in questionable payments to government officials in Nigeria, Gabon, the Dominican Republic, and Libya...

...The industry is dominated by American corporations working under subcontracts for the major oil companies...

...A fairly typical case is that of Peter Manangkalangi, an Indonesian working for the American-owned Reading and Bates Exploration Company offshore...

...In July 1925, workers in the Lake Maracaibo district staged a mass meeting of oil laborers—the first...

...Press reports detail a numbing litany of death and dismemberment: nineteen Norwegians killed in 1976 alone...

...dozens of novels and leftist pamphlets emerged condemning treatment of Venezuelans by the international oil companies...

...In 1946, a year after leftists seized the government and called elections, the first collective labor contract was signed protecting petroleum workers...

...more than 200 workers lost in the North Sea since 1969...

...In addition to receiving different medical care, foreign workers in general do not receive the training required of American workers...

...The AFL-CIO estimates that from 1966 to 1971,900,000 jobs were lost to foreign production centers owned by American companies...

...Exporting jobs American corporations have been expanding their overseas operations at an accelerating rate for several decades, creating short-term foreign capital havens with unfortunate consequences for the world's workers...

...courts are honored, say the industry lawyers, it will drive up the cost of goods to the American consumer...

...If claims by foreign citizens in U.S...

...Blood and oil The perils of offshore petroleum production Ross Milloy At 4 o'clock in the morning on February 3,1974, Heli Ramon Sanchez glanced up from his work aboard an oil production barge in the muddy waters of Venezuela's Lake Maracaibo...

...They use two essential arguments: First, that their local compensation is the equivalent of American standards because "it's cheaper to live over there and these people don't need as much money to live anyway...

...When Standard Oil (Exxon) and Royal Dutch Shell first moved into Venezuela during the early 1900s, the local Indian population already used seeping oil for lamps and medicine—though they had no knowledge of its growing importance in international commerce...

...Because of a series of court decisions which allow plaintiffs to "pierce the corporate veil" of foreign ownership, millions of dollars have been won from American owners of overseas corporations...

...Only four nations have reasonably strong unions representing offshore workers: the United States, Norway, Holland, and Venezuela...

...Sanchez was again carried to a waiting car...

...The name is misleading—only the sources of petroleum and the industry's workers are international...

...Generally speaking," says one foreign ministry official, "the companies keep a blacklist of 'troublemakers.' Any worker who complains or files suit against the company will never work in the industry locally again...

...Venezuelan government officials were instrumental in the formation of OPEC in 1960 as a counter to the industry's increasing corporate concentration...

...Petroleum production has always been a dangerous business...

...Ten-neco, an American conglomerate with substantial energy interests, reported spending more than $12 million overseas in "protection for employes, payments to government employes, consultants' fees, and investments beneficial to government employes...

...Because of the enormous economic and political power wielded by the international oil companies, governments often work hand-in-hand with them to minimize safety standards, underpay native workers, suppress worker dissent, and discourage legal compensation claims...

...American companies have never been hesitant to utilize the U.S...

...There were problems, of course, always there were problems...

...What makes these paltry amounts so shocking (aside from their contrast with oil company profits) is that many foreign offshore workers are entitled by U.S...

...In 1962, for example, almost 92 per cent of all mobile offshore drilling rigs in the world operated off the American coastline...

...Only Norway and Venezuela require one month's preparatory training before a worker can be sent out to a production or drilling facility...

...In March 1974, the government created a Presidential Commission on Oil Reversion, charged with preparing the nationalization legislation eventually enacted in 1975...

...The implications of this massive job and capital flight are both economic and political...

...The agonies of life in those camps has become a national shame...

...Even that nationalization, however—the largest peaceful expropriation in history—has turned out to the advantage of big oil...

...Strict safety regulations rarely exist...

...Coastal States Gas Company paid $8 million abroad in "brokerage fees," Gulf Oil gave $5 million in cash to foreign politicians and parties between 1966 and 1972, and Occidental was charged in a U. S. court suit with having paid $3 million in campaign contributions and bribes in Venezuela...

...Officials of the International Labor Organization (ILO), a United Nations affiliate, estimate that the industry claims between 250 and 700 lives annually...

...Aside from the latent racism of that argument, few things could be further from the truth...

...Mexico reports ten serious accidents per rig between 1974 and 1976...

...workers begin to view foreigners as an economic threat when, in fact, their futures are inextricably linked by a need to control multinational expansion and unite in a common front...

...Studies conducted by economists have reported that wage variations between American and foreign workers in the same job categories range from 116 to 275 per cent...

...In fairness to the companies, it must be noted that these are not the lowest wages paid abroad by American The Venezuela story As site of the earliest offshore exploration and onetime world leader in petroleum exports, Venezuela occupies a unique position: It has passed through the stages we are seeing, or may expect to see, in other parts of the Third World— corporate domination of the government, intense labor strife, progressive leftist animosity and unionization, and finally, nationalization...

...Damages in such cases often soar into hundreds of thousands of dollars, and million-dollar settlements are not uncommon...

...R.M...

...The doctor had already begun examining him when the Loffland Brothers' Chief of Industrial Relations, Oswaldo Sevillano, entered the operating room and ordered the doctor to cease his preparations...

...This practice is widespread: Gani Bin Omar, an Indonesian employe of American-owned Offshore Logistics, once spent two days with a compound foot fracture aboard a vessel just a few miles from help...

...After arriving at the private Policlinica hospital, Heli Sanchez was sent up for x-rays while the doctor scrubbed for surgery...

...Strict safety regulations rarely exist, and are even more rarely enforced, in emerging nations...

...One out of every 1,600 American offshore workers can expect to die while working offshore...

...This year, 50 per cent of all worldwide production will be derived from offshore...

...His co-workers dragged him free and stood momentarily horrified by the huge gash across his chest, the exposed broken ribs, and the thin trail of blood dripping from his mouth...

...Still, it was a job, better than most, and when it was over there were the birds and the family and the bars to make it worthwhile...

...Taiwanese employes of American electronics manufacturers are paid fourteen cents per hour at the same job for which an American earns $2.56 per hour...

...No public organizing attempts were made until Gomez died in December 1935...

...Outside of those countries with strong unions, the rest of the world's offshore force (an estimated 200,000 workers) are left to seek aid from company-sponsored "associations," which are little more than social clubs, or to hope for the intervention of their own governments...

...Why...

...Two of them are useless...

...Sanchez was still watching floodlights steam against the distant Ross Milloy is a free-lance writer in Spicewood, Texas...

...Exxon, the Santa Claus of American gift-giving abroad, admitted funneling more than $50 million to Italian politicians between 1963 and 1972...

...In a work-related death or injury in the United States, the claimants are entitled to Government benefits based on salaries up to a maximum of $130,000...

...Sevillano demanded that Sanchez be moved again...

...Manangkalangi, twenty-three years old and married less than a year, was ordered to reduce the pressure in a valve...

...The work which maintains such earnings is dangerous enough, wherever performed...

...Singapore, where most maintenance on Southeast Asian rigs is performed, offers maximum disability payments of $4,500 and survivor benefits of $3,000...

...The pay was not as good as he thought he deserved—some others got twice as much for doing the same jot)—and conditions aboard the barge were not the best...

...By 1976, fewer than 36 per cent were based there...

...Many multimillion-dollar suits are still pending...

...Nearly half have made strikes illegal...

...Johnny Luker, a former employe of the McDermott Company in Nigeria, summed up management's attitude this way: "Why should we put in hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of safety equipment when we can replace a few workers for two grand...

...Ojeda, Venezuela, is a dusty, carbon-encrusted oil workers' camp close to the offshore fields and about thirty miles from the large city of Maracaibo...

...Production began almost immediately, with the companies organizing work camps surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by soldiers...

...A skilled forty-five-year-old Nigerian who becomes permanently disabled might have been earning $3,000 a year and thus might expect $60,000 in compensation until age sixty-five—a far cry from the $5,000 maximum allowable under Nigerian law...

...Gerasimo Chavez, general secretary of the Petroleum Workers' Union of Lagunillas, Venezuela, says weather has nothing to do with the problem...

...It was a decade which saw rising aspirations and political consciousness throughout the less-developed world...

...They also contend that local governments demand hiring quotas which force companies to use inexperienced local workers in crucial jobs, that medical facilities are less advanced overseas, and finally, that native workers cannot be trained adequately on the dangers of production equipment...

...In part, this is due to the overwhelming technological edge the United States held until recent years...

...Those partially disabled must accept whatever terms the companies offer...

...Besides direct payments to foreign officials and to U.S...

...Sanchez, said Sevillano, was entitled to free medical care at the publicly-owned Hospital General del Sur and the company would not be responsible for any expenses incurred at the Policlinica...

...After months of violence, the companies convinced President Lopez Contreras to end the strike by decree, granting the workers a wage increase of sixteen cents per day and the right to have cold water...

...thirty to fifty men killed or seriously disabled every year in Venezuela since 1929 (prompting one official to say American companies are "running a butchershop down here...

...The British Medical Association reports that offshore platform workers' fatalities are ten times greater than in coal mining (previously the most hazardous category...

...In addition to the awful physics of the machinery itself, workers must contend with adverse weather, dangerous boarding procedures from one vessel to another, drilling mishaps, fire or explosion, x-ray exposure, drowning, noise, and toxic chemicals...

...When a Venezuelan gets hurt, they first put him in a boat, then a car, then maybe another car before he makes it to the hospital...

...They can await the humanitarian impulses of the oil companies, they can appeal to their own governments, or they can organize strong union movements...