UK oil and gas workers risk becoming the ‘coal miners of our generation’, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has warned, calling Labor not to ban new licenses in the North Sea without a clear plan to save jobs.
Unite launches billboard campaign in six Scottish constituencies to persuade Keir Starmer to commit more investment to the North East Scotlandthe center of the offshore oil and gas industry.
Unless Labor can show it will protect jobs and communities, it must be prepared to continue issuing new licenses for oil and gas exploration, Unite claims. The union’s campaign slogan is “No ban without a plan”.
“They are at risk of becoming the miners of our generation,” Graham said. “We only have to look at what happened in the coal towns. I am the daughter of miners – my family is from the North East, many of them were miners. And it’s destroying some of these places. They never recovered. And the difference is we know this time – we can see it down the track.”
The shadow climate secretary, Ed Miliband, has promised to lay the groundwork for Labour’s planned state-owned green energy firm, Great British Energy, in Scotland. And part of Labour’s £7 billion ‘wealth fund’ will be earmarked for wind power.
But Unite, which was Labour’s biggest donor in the 2019 general election, wants to see more concrete promises of investment in green technology in north-east Scotland.
Graham said Unite’s research suggested it would take £6bn over six years to start producing wind turbines in the region. “You shouldn’t let go of one rope before you’ve grabbed another,” she said. “My main thing is that I cannot allow these workers to be sacrificed on the altar of net zero.”
She argued that a clear proposal for jobs and investment would help Labor make much-anticipated gains in Scotland. “Labour would be the heroes of the hour. Why don’t you?” she said.
Most of the seats where Unite is running its No Ban Without a Plan campaign – or their predecessors before the boundary changes – are held by the SNP with comfortable majorities. Two are Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, and Aberdeen North.
Despite the imperative for the UK to divest from fossil fuels, some trade unions expressed alarm last year when Labor first announced it would not issue new oil and gas exploration licences. The general secretary of the GMB, Gary Smith, called the decision naive. Starmer responded by telling the GMB conference last June: “What I will never allow to happen is a repeat of what happened in coal mining, where an industry ended and nobody planned for the future.”
But Labor continued to renege on its £28 billion a year green investment pledgewhich has raised concerns among unions and environmental activists about whether it has committed enough resources to a smooth transition to a net-zero consumption economy.
Chaitanya Kumar of the New Economics Foundation think tank said: “The oil and gas industry is ultimately a threat to us all and needs to be scaled back significantly. But securing a fair transitional deal for workers is out of the question. Fortunately, Labor still has time to come up with a plan without compromising its commitment to stop new fossil fuel drilling.
Campaign group Uplift, which is calling for a “swift and fair” transition away from oil and gas in the UK, estimates the sector supports 200,000 jobs directly or indirectly in the supply chain – a third fewer than a decade ago , as output has decreased over time.
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Uplift director Tessa Hahn said every government must work with local communities to manage the transition away from fossil fuels. “This part of the climate energy transition will require a huge amount of industry change, and we absolutely cannot afford to sacrifice or throw communities under the bus,” she said.
A Labor Party source said: “The Labor Party has a non-negotiable commitment to a proud future for the North Sea. We will deliver the most significant investment in the North Sea for a generation as we pursue our mission of energy independence and lower bills.
“If the Conservatives at Westminster and the SNP at Holyrood are re-elected, they will continue to sell out workers and communities, leaving the industry without a plan for the future, as they have done for the past 14 years.”
Graham has made workplace battles over pay and conditions, rather than internal Labor politics, the focus of her leadership since succeeding Len McCluskey, a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn, three years ago.
However, she has previously pushed for greater commitments from Labor to protect steel jobs and she attended a critical meeting this week on the party’s policy on workers’ rights.
Jamie Peters, campaigner from Friends of the Earth, said: “Two things are clear as we head into the next general election. First, any succeeding government must accelerate our transition to a clean energy system, including without new oil and gas in the North Sea. This is the bottom line if we are to achieve our climate goals and stop the worst climate collapse.
“And second, the transition must be designed in a fair way, with workers and new jobs in emerging green industries at the heart of it, ensuring that no one is left behind as we build a brighter future.” What we are about to see is a plan for a cleaner Britain that is equal parts swift, ambitious and fair.
