Oil and gas workers are being forced to take significant pay cuts to work in renewables, one of the UK’s biggest trade unions has told MPs.
The claims by the GMB union, which represents thousands of oil and gas workers, cast doubt on Ed Miliband’s claims of a “fair energy transition” for employees.
It says the renewables sector pays wages up to 40pc lower than the oil and gas industry, employs far fewer workers and operates a “hire and fire” culture that is destroying the UK’s energy communities.
“We don’t recognise the energy transition,” Claire Greer, a GMB senior organiser, told the Commons energy select committee on Wednesday.
The warning comes on the eve of the Aberdeen South by-election, where the oil and gas industry is a key issue for voters.
Ms Greer told MPs: “Our members don’t see an energy transition that involves them or that includes them – particularly for members who work offshore within the North Sea.
“What they do see is that jobs are falling off a cliff edge, that there is no transition, there are no other jobs for them to go to and there is certainly no uptick in positions in renewables.”
Ms Greer was speaking as one of the witnesses in the energy security and net zero select committee’s inquiry into the future of the oil and gas industry.
It followed the flight of offshore operators from UK waters triggered by the windfall levy, which took overall taxes on oil and gas profits to 78pc, alongside Mr Miliband’s decision to ban new drilling. Those decisions have led to job losses in the oil and gas sector surging to 1,000 a month.
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