Oil Strike 2006

It is a funny old world and sometimes you wonder what gets reported in the press.

In Aberdeen, which due to the Oil rush is a boom town again, 10 days ago 900 divers went on strike. It was news in Scotland but in the English press not a word.

Their demand was for a 50% pay rise and they were offered 35% which they rejected and they walked out on strike. About one week later the employers, who subcontract to the oil companies, struck a deal and it was for 46%. A truly incredible rise…

Who can begrudge them though? I know stories on the North Sea oil rigs of the sheets from divers being collected covered in red patches, where they have bled during the night from their ears and noses.

It is a reminder that can so easily be forgotten that when there are supply shortages in the labour market and an industry is very profitable, workers can demand large pay increases. I do wonder whether one day globablly we will ever see shortages that allow workers to ask for large pay increases. China is after all aging.

It reminds me of one of the greatest natural tragedies to hit Europe, The Black Plague in 1347. It was one of the first examples of chemical warfare as the Mongols or Tartars were afflicted by the plague and were laying seige to a European town. They used large catapults to fire in some of the corpses and it quickly spread through the population who began to flee taking the plague with them spreading it throughout Europe.

There are estimates that perhaps 30% of the population of Europe was wiped out, a heart-breakingly high number. One simply can't imagine the pain, the human loss and rupture that it must have caused. In many countries society would have been in a state of near collapse.

The consequence economically during the plague were devastating however, for the working man that survived they were suddenly able to demand far higher salaries, and it was the beginning of the end of serfdom in Europe.

So the message for the modern working man living in poverty in many parts of the world, is have less children and practise birth control at the preconception stage. The problem is it is something that everyone needs to practise for it to have a consequence but fewer children, would ultimately lead to higher salaries over a generation or two for their children. For governments that really want to help their people they need to think about ways that they can encourage pre-conception birth control.