Received from: Unite
Merged into composite 05
Congress notes Labour’s commitment to create 650,000 green jobs by 2030.
Congress believes that serious state investment and industrial planning on a scale not seen in decades, will be required deliver on that objective.
Congress notes that over 30,000 off-shore North Sea oil and gas jobs, plus seven to eight times that number in the supply chain, are under threat.
Congress notes with dismay that the new government has adopted an unhelpful arbitrary target to stop drilling in the North Sea, before any plan for jobs has been agreed.
Congress agrees that climate change poses a systemic risk to working class communities, but at a time of rising geopolitical tension, does not believe that we can abandon fossil fuels until we know how we will replace them, and how the jobs and communities from the North Sea fields will be protected.
Therefore, Congress agrees to do everything in its power to prevent oil and gas workers becoming the miners of net zero. We will not let them suffer the equivalent of the coal closures, which broke the back of mining towns across the UK.
Congress demands that:
i. no ban on new licenses for drilling is introduced, before a fully funded workers’ plan guaranteeing commensurate jobs for all North Sea workers, is agreed
– creating 35,000 new green energy jobs in Scotland by 2030 requires additional funding of £1.1bn per year, a fraction of the oil profits made in recent years.
Unite