Safety representatives' roles and dilemmas in the Danish oil and gas industry

Safety representatives are supposed to play a crucial role in ensuring safe and healthy workplaces in the oil and gas industry, but the role is marked by dilemmas and constraints. This paper analyses how safety representatives in their daily practice develop a role that can create the necessary recognition from management and the manoeuvring space to fulfil their role. It is based on a study of three firms in the Danish oil and gas industry. The results indicate that safety representatives are marked by dilemmas between the rather extensive legislative demands and the conflicting expectations from colleagues and management, and constraints on the day-to-day fulfilment of the role. Danish legislation and Danish industrial relations focus on the collaborative aspect of the safety representative role, which impacts on the view of the role. The primary role of the safety representative is to solve small problems rather than protect the interests of colleagues. The focus on problem solving is caused not only by legislation, but by the policies of the individual companies - in the three companies studied, there were considerable differences between them, with one company including its safety representatives to a much larger extent than the others.