{"id":23248,"date":"2023-03-09T11:17:03","date_gmt":"2023-03-09T11:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=23248"},"modified":"2023-03-09T11:40:45","modified_gmt":"2023-03-09T11:40:45","slug":"offshore-energy-workers-lay-out-their-vision-for-the-future-in-a-just-transition-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2023\/03\/09\/offshore-energy-workers-lay-out-their-vision-for-the-future-in-a-just-transition-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Offshore energy workers lay out their vision for the future in a just transition plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following article written by Tracy Keeling was first posted by The Canary<\/a>. On this offshore energy workers and their allies lay out their vision for the future in a just transition plan.<\/strong><\/p>\n

OFFSHORE ENERGY WORKERS LAY OUT THEIR VISION FOR A JUST TRANSITION PLAN<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Robin Rigg Wind Farm – image John\/Wikimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Offshore oil and gas workers revealed their plan for a just transition to renewable energy in the North Sea on 6 March. As part of a coalition involving climate groups and trade unions, they released\u00a0a report titled\u00a0Our Power<\/em><\/a>. It laid out the \u201cworkers\u2019 visions for the future\u201d in full.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Profits, prices and temperatures are soaring, just as wages and working conditions are plummeting.<\/em><\/p>\n

Today we\u2019re launching\u00a0<\/em>#OurPower<\/em><\/a>, 10 demands devised by offshore workers to transform our energy system.<\/em><\/p>\n

Our Power<\/strong><\/p>\n

In an industry first, campaigners say the\u00a0Our Power<\/em>\u00a0plan puts workers at the centre \u2013 and helm \u2013 of a transition away from offshore fossil fuel production.<\/p>\n

The nonprofit\u00a0Platform<\/a>\u00a0is one of the organisations involved in the initiative. Its just transition campaigner, Gabrielle Jeliazkov, said:<\/p>\n

The future of the UK\u2019s energy system should be in the hands of workers and communities. Industry profiteering and government inaction has left us with soaring bills, declining working conditions and no plan for an energy transition. In the midst of the climate and cost of living crises, offshore oil and gas workers have developed a way forward. Politicians must deliver on these demands.<\/em><\/p>\n

The plan includes\u00a010 key demands<\/a>. Broadly speaking, these demands cover support for workers to transition to employment in the renewables sector, strong protections for workers within the offshore renewables industry, and systemic changes to ensure that citizens \u2013 not corporations \u2013 benefit from the energy transformation.<\/p>\n

As the\u00a0Ecologist<\/em><\/a>\u00a0reported, workers\u2019 accounts indicate why strong protections are necessary. They say that in the existing offshore wind sector, companies can pay less than \u00a35 per hour to some employees. This is due to the Conservative government waving immigration salary threshold rules for the sector over the last five years.<\/p>\n

Fossil fuel industry failing to invest<\/strong><\/p>\n

Platform and Friends of the Earth (FoE) Scotland coordinated two years of workshops and research with workers in the offshore oil and gas industry to devise the plan. Among other things, the\u00a0strategy<\/a>calls for:<\/p>\n

publicly owned national and regional energy companies to build renewable energy generation projects at the pace and scale required to meet climate change targets.<\/em><\/p>\n

The report argued that the fossil fuel industry is failing to invest in renewables at a meaningful scale in the UK, despite enjoying\u00a0record-breaking profits<\/a>. It\u00a0highlighted<\/a>\u00a0that:<\/p>\n

73% of oil and gas companies invest nothing in renewable energy production in the UK<\/em><\/p>\n

The workers\u2019 just transition plan calls for a rewrite of the relevant tax rules. This will increase the amount of tax revenue from existing offshore fossil fuel operations. It also demands that polluting companies bear the costs for oil rig decommissioning. Moreover, the plan presses for a permanent \u2018Energy Excess Profits Tax\u2019, in order to:<\/p>\n

prevent excessive profiteering at the expense of the public by oil and gas and other energy corporations during crisis situations.<\/em><\/p>\n

Essential for the climate; backed by the workers<\/strong><\/p>\n

The demands have the backing of over 1000 surveyed offshore oil and gas workers. Additionally, major unions and energy and climate organisations \u2013 such as the RMT (National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers), Unite Scotland, and Uplift \u2013 support the plan. Campaigners say that the demands are:<\/p>\n

comprehensive in their scope, transformative in their scale, and deliverable now.<\/em><\/p>\n

For the workers, the plan offers an opportunity to turn the energy system on its head and make it work for the public. As a\u00a0rigging supervisor named Mark<\/a>\u00a0said in the report:<\/p>\n

The government should be working for the British public, but they\u2019re not. They\u2019re working for the companies. All day, every day, everyone I know is asking how can this be the situation? How can the government\u00a0let this happen?<\/em><\/p>\n

Moreover, transitioning away from fossil fuels is urgent amid the worsening\u00a0climate crisis<\/a>. Head of campaigns at FoE Scotland Mary Church emphasised this, saying:<\/p>\n

Climate science is crystal clear that we have to rapidly phase out fossil fuels if we want a liveable future. Failure from politicians to properly plan and support the transition to renewables is leaving workers totally adrift on the whims of oil and gas companies, and the planet to burn.<\/em><\/p>\n

7.3.23<\/strong><\/p>\n

_______________<\/p>\n

also see:<\/p>\n

The SNP have joined forces with the Tories to create \u2018green\u2019 Scottish tax havens – Jonathan Shafi, Novara Media and George Gunn, bella caledonia<\/a><\/p>\n

Environmental degradation and sustainable development – ELSD coverage<\/a><\/p>\n

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The following article written by Tracy Keeling was first posted by The Canary. On this offshore energy workers and their allies lay out their vision for the future in a just transition plan. OFFSHORE ENERGY WORKERS LAY OUT THEIR VISION FOR A JUST TRANSITION PLAN Offshore oil and gas workers revealed their plan for a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1852,1861,1857,8865,1875],"tags":[9177],"class_list":["post-23248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-communists-organise","category-alienation-self-determination","category-environmental-degradation","category-sustainable-development","category-scotland-against-unionism","tag-author-tracy-keeling"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/mastodon.scot\/@rcfscotland\/109993041889942716","error":""},"views":1293,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23248"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23255,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23248\/revisions\/23255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}