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Variant 28 Spring 2007 – the Oil issue

…the free, independent, arts magazine. In-depth coverage
in the context of broader social, political & cultural issues.

text : full issue
pdf : full issue

Front cover
Texan Oilfield, USA, 1922.
Image courtesy of the Houston Public Library photo archive
pdf

Content

* Over a Barrel — Editorial
The writers for this issue devoted to oil take a multi-layered internationalist approach to the questions that surround the commodity which Juan Pablo Alfonzo, a Venezuelan oil minister, once called the “devil’s excrement.” There are also many anti-war activists and environmentalists who will pinpoint oil as the root of all evil.
However, what was compelling in preparing this issue was how the crisis of faith in the oil economy brings us to diverse questions about hi-finance, the expansion of debt, enfeebled democracy and the possibilities for social change. Moving through the United States, the Middle East and the Niger Delta, this edition of Variant takes us from the southern tip of Latin America all the way to the Western coast of Norway.

* Cold Death by Neoliberalism — John Foster
John Foster’s political economy of fuel poverty in Scotland reveals the impact of privatisation, monopoly tendencies, and speculation in the UK’s energy sector. Despite North Sea oil, energy is more expensive in the UK than elsewhere in Europe. And in 2006, when UK pensioners faced a 30% rise in their energy bills, the companies operating in the North Sea yielded a 42.9% return on capital. Energy policy is being hindered by reliance on transnational companies which, under rising speculative
pressures, have increasingly short-term goals to maximize profits.
Working against any real progress towards developing sustainable and renewable energy big business appears to be set on a course of inaction when reform of the energy sector is urgently required.

* Living on oil under democracy — Owen Logan
In our minds, at least, oil is often linked to power more than energy. However, Owen Logan writes that it’s not so much that oil and democracy don’t mix, but more that the oil economy shows the dubious nature of modern democracy. Drawing on interviews done for the ‘Oil Lives’ oral history project based at the University of Aberdeen his journey from Texas to Venezuela and Argentina is travelogue from the Bush dynasty’s heartland to the politics of Latin American anti-imperialism. He
examines the ‘solidarity economy’, speaks to trade union leaders dissatisfied with conventional trade unionism and meets oil workers whose Piquetero campaigning was defined early on by their stand on environmental protection. He considers the broader implications of these developments.

* Many Sellers. One buyer. — Jake Molloy & Ronnie McDonald
In this article from OILC, the offshore workers trade union, the writers say that it is disconcerting when the man working alongside you is paid a wage only a third of what you regard as the absolute minimum acceptable. In providing the background of Filipino recruitment to the North Sea industry this article exposes the way the Philippine economy was broken apart by national debt bringing about an exodus of labour which serves the interests of the state and employers at the expense of
workers’ abilities to negotiate their wages and conditions of employment. A system of monopsony, which binds Filipino workers, is aided and abetted by partnership agreements with British trade unions. Rather than truly representing these workers big UK unions appear to be managing industrial relations for the employers.
Accompanying drawing by David Shrigley: www.davidshrigley.com

* The Fictitious Commodity — Andy Cumbers
Comparing different experiences of the North Sea oil industry, from the perspectives of so called ‘deviant’ trade unionists in the UK and Norway, Andy Cumbers considers the diminishing returns of larger bureaucratized trade unions who, like the employers, regard labour as a commodity. Focusing on individual cases, this article highlights the Norwegian cases where divers were betrayed by trade unions which colluded with false safety standards. Yet discussions at the SAFE union
in Stavanger, that are reported here, suggest that Scandinavia’s history of militancy, and a more honest trade unionism, is not yet over. Organisations like SAFE, and their sister union OILC in the UK, are rightly proud of their achievements, but their greatest challenges lie ahead in integrating immediate needs of their members with the broader issues facing society.

Also in this issue:

* “To be truly radical is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing” — Phil England
* The Ecological Question: Can Capitalism Prevail? — Daniel Buck
* The Next Gulf — Simon Pirani
* “Anyone can go to Baghdad; real men go toTehran” — Muhammed Idress Ahmed
* The Friendly Atom — NuclearSpin
* The Inverted Coalmine — Terry Brotherstone
The late Bob Ballantyne was a survivor of the Piper Alpha disaster in which 167 oil workers were killed when the platform was consumed by fire. Caused by corporate negligence, this industrial accident in some ways changed the face of North Sea labour politics. The article explores the social and cultural context of a composite photograph, ‘The inverted Coalmine’, made for the Scottish Parliament by Owen Logan in collaboration with Bob Ballantyne. Terry Brotherstone is director of the ‘oil lives’ oral history project at the University of Aberdeen and Bob Ballantyne was one of the first people who recorded their life story in that project.
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