Mexico's Oil Company Makes the Most Dangerous Safety Videos
Pemex addresses its dreadful worker injury rates with telenovelas.
Say you’re an international oil company with a heinous worker fatality rate. How do you protect your crews? Mexico’s Pemex answered that question with a $44 million investment into 18 of the most bugfuck-loony training videos ever committed to screen.
A Reuters investigation found the films, which combine the special effects budget of a SyFy original movie with a simmering romance and intrigue not often associated with oil rig workers.
The films are hilarious as terrible movies but criminally negligent as training videos. And if you’re Pemex, who in 2013 racked up injuries and fatality at a rate six times the international average, that’s something you should give a shit about. In the company’s defense, Pemex says workers need a spicy plot and a girl in a bikini to pay attention. A polite response to that would be that they might be surprised if they gave them more credit.
You can watch a trailer for Pemex’s productions here. And if it wets your appetite for international cinema, check out the collection at Reuters. A Story of Oil Workers really is the Bicycle Thieves of blue-collar training videos.
