The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) and the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority have audited Maersk Drilling’s routines for handling notifications of censurable conditions (whistleblowing) at work.
Notification concerns the reporting of censurable conditions at the workplace. Through their employment, employees may become aware of matters that are or could oppose to:
- Legal acts and regulations;
- The company’s policies;
- The general perception of what is justifiable or ethically acceptable.
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The Working Environment Act gives workers the right to notify censurable conditions. The notification rules in the Working Environment Act cover cases where an employee notifies censurable conditions in his or her own company. The Act also entitles contracted employees to notify censurable conditions in the contracting company.
The employer must prepare procedures for internal notifications or implement other measures to enable the right to notify censurable conditions. This right should contribute to enhancing employees’ genuine freedom of expression in the workplace.
In its response, Mærsk Drilling describeds the procedure for notifying, and receiving and handling notices of, censurable conditions. It is assessed that the content of the notification routine meets the requirements in Section 2A-3 (5) of the Working Environment Act.
It appears from the response that the routine was not prepared in collaboration with the employees and their representatives. The audit detected one non-conformity regarding deficient employee participation in the preparation of the routine.
