ABSTRACT
For the most part the problems of labour law as they relate to workers on the continental shelf in the North Sea have two causes. The first is the formula by which it was decreed that law should apply to operations on the shelf. The second is the type and style of the companies that make up the offshore industry, and the pressures, political and economic, under which they operate. Indeed it is section 127 of the Employment Protection Act which places the industry at somewhat of a cross-roads as far as labour relations are concerned, with important repercussions lying ahead whatever the reaction. In many respects this is true of all the legislation passed by Parliament in 1975 which has reference to offshore oil, and the industry has to decide how to live with a number of measures which offend many of its traditional notions.
