Shady Hiring and Training Practices in Drilling
You - standing in fire-retardant overalls with steel-toed boots, gloves, eye protection, a hard hat, and a shovel - listen carefully on your first day as the manager explains your job and watch as some seasoned guys demonstrate: is that training? Not by authoritative standards.
Oil and gas extraction is a dangerous occupation, with serious and even fatal oilfield accidents occurring every year in Texas. Oil and gas companies have a responsibility to properly train their employees and follow safety standards in order to prevent accidents. In this dangerous occupation, "near-misses" prove all the time that prior training and instruction save lives.
Responsible oil and gas operations properly train their workers. Good companies provide staff with quality safety equipment and follow all regulations, sometimes even implementing other redundant safety mechanisms not required by authorities. Through training and drills, employees learn the hazards of the drilling environment and practice for emergencies. In short, good companies put workers first and business second. However, few companies commit to such admirable standards.
Less responsible operations care less about worker safety. Training for employees may be minimal, with safety at the periphery and training of the trade at the focus. Workers might wear substandard personal protective equipment, while management looks the other way when rules get broken.
Sometimes, oil and gas workers train to "do things how they've always been done" instead of training to work as safely as possible. So long as nothing stops the drilling and the rule-breaking goes unnoticed (which happens often enough), these companies are okay with cutting corners a bit.
Irresponsible oil and gas operations only give employees basic information to complete the job, forgoing proper training and hazard alerts altogether and sometimes even ditching safety gear.
Some operations will even hire workers without training them at all. Desperate for the muscle that perpetuates the drilling business, contractors and managers in need of hired hands sometimes loiter around gas stations and restaurants, hoping to find potential day workers there (or workers from other rigs willing to switch), and take them to the rig without training them.
Though they don't always get caught by authorities, shady practices such as these put oil and gas workers at risk. The oilfields brim with hazards, and all employees must be properly trained before engaging in oil and gas work.
By law, oilfield operations must properly train their employees. Especially in work as dangerous as drilling, anything less is unacceptable, jeopardizing health and lives for expediency or cut costs. If you feel your employer neglected your safety, know that the Wyatt Law Firm stands by oilfield workers, and we fight for victims of negligence.
If you've been hurt in an oilfield accident due to improper or nonexistent job training, you may be entitled to compensation. Our oilfield accident attorneys at the Wyatt Law Firm have been litigating complex cases for over 25 years now with an impressive record of success. Call us today at 210-340-5550, or submit a confidential contact form via our website.
We do what we do because we know that preventable accidents change lives forever - we help clients rekindle their lives during their darkest times.