GMB: Need to protect oil and gas industry is beyond urgent

The window of opportunity to secure the UK oil and gas industry and protect thousands of jobs is slamming shut, GMB has warned.

Gary Smith, the union’s general secretary, said the need to protect offshore production and supply chains up and down the coastline is beyond urgent.

He told a fringe meeting at the STUC Congress today that unions have been sounding the alarm for 15 years but time is running out.

He said: “We have been getting told about hope and opportunity and green jobs that, by and large, have never materialized for many years now.

“We have been having that discussion for far too long while, in the real world, jobs, real jobs, real unionised jobs, are being lost hand over fist.

“That is happening already and we have even graver concerns about what is coming around the corner.”

Smith was speaking at a fringe meeting – called Workers Power The Future, the GMB campaign to raise the voice of energy workers - on the opening day of the STUC congress in Dundee.

He said the dramatic impact of Donald Trump on global politics and economics meant UK ministers face new challenges and will need a new response.

He praised the Labour UK government’s decision to effectively nationalise British Steel and said the opportunities of reindustrialisation must be seized as the world changes.

He said: “It is a recognition that, politically and economically, we are in a different world now.

“There will be challenges but opportunities too and the biggest is reindustrialisation.”

Claire Greer, GMB Scotland organiser in energy, warned the debate about how oil and gas jobs can be protected during a transition to green energy will soon be academic without urgent action.

She said: “We might have been having this conversation, or something like it, for the past 15 years, but we won't be having it in five years’ time because it'll be done

“It'll be over. Offshore will be gone, the supply chains will be gone and the jobs will be gone.

“At that point, all the politicians who have made all those promises about all these new jobs will not have to tell us how it went wrong because we already know.

“We have been telling them for years how it is going wrong.

“In energy, we have an industry that works really well. It could not be more important for the people of the UK and it could not be more important for its workers.

“The health and safety is second to none, the revenue is second to none, the skills, the experience, all second to none.

“People come to the UK to learn this stuff from us and yet we seem happy to watch it all go.

“We need to start appreciating this industry and protecting it because when it goes, it goes and that will be disastrous for our economy, for our energy security, for everyone.

“We will not stop fighting for energy workers because if we cannot stop or slow this process, there will be no way back.”

Michael Marra, Scottish Labour MSP for the North East, also joined the wide-ranging discussion and told how it has become increasingly difficult to engage with many operators offshore because they are winding down and preparing exit strategies.

He admitted the scale and speed of the transition to renewables being planned by the UK government is unprecedented.

He said: “It is an incredibly difficult thing to do and there's no doubt about that.

“I don't think anywhere has done what we are doing at this level.”

He admitted the challenges of transitioning to renewables were complex and that how green jobs could match those in oil and gas in scale and salary remains unclear.

Marra said: “We know wages in renewables industry are lower than they are in the offshore extractive industries and that will have a direct impact on families and wage packets.”

He also emphasised the urgent need to gain clarity around the work that might be created to ensure young people train for those jobs.

That need for training programmes and apprenticeships was also emphasised by John Channon, a GMB rep who was a coal miner before starting work in the gas industry.

He is now working on a pilot scheme using hyrdrogen to power a village in Fife and said his career only underlines the need to train the skilled workers for the jobs of tomorrow.

He said: “If these new jobs, skilled, well paid, unionised jobs are going to be created here, we need the skilled workers to fill them.

“The alternative is to see the jobs go abroad and the skills with them.”