We joined trade unions and climate groups outside Parliament to demand that the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, stop prioritising shareholder profits and start funding a just transition for North Sea workers and their communities. The market-led approach to the energy transition is failing. Shareholder profits have been prioritised over affordable energy, adequate public investment and good, green jobs.

The coalition is calling on the Chancellor for an emergency funding package of £1.9 billion per year for North Sea workers ahead of the Spending Review. A funding package on this scale is urgently needed for oil and gas and supply chain workers to make the transition into renewable energy jobs, ensuring that workers and communities benefit.

The call is endorsed by the largest union representing UK offshore workers, Unite the Union, as well as the National Union of Rail and Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), and Aberdeen’s Trades Union Councils. 65 climate groups including Greenpeace UK, Uplift, Friends of the Earth Scotland, Oil Change International, Global Justice Now, Extinction Rebellion and Platform are also part of the coalition. 

The £1.9 billion emergency funding package to create permanent, unionised renewable energy jobs and support the country’s oil and gas workers to transition into them is comprised of:

• £1.1 billion per year to develop permanent, local jobs in public and community-owned wind manufacturing.
• £440 million of further investment each year for ports, on top of the £1.8 billion already committed through the National Wealth Fund.
• £355 million per year to develop a dedicated training fund for offshore oil and gas workers, with match-funding from industry.

Letter to the Chancellor

Comprehensive Spending Review submission

As the dust settles, these were the key climate motions debated and passed at TUC this year:

C05 Industrial strategy, national security and a workers’ transition was the composite motion from Unite and GMB: 

It states: "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 the jobs and communities from the North Sea fields will be protected. Congress notes with dismay that the new government has adopted a target to stop drilling in the North Sea before any plan for jobs has been agreed."

and calls for "an industrial strategy policy that maximises our domestic energy strengths for national security, with all assets and options part of the solution: nuclear, renewables and oil and gas production"

Unison, UCU and NEU spoke against the motion, and it went to a card vote, passing by by 2,712k for to 2,457k against.

You can watch the debate from 44.50 here

Motion 19, Climate change and workers’ health was brought by BFAWU and seconded by FBU.  

By passing the motion, Congress agreed to campaign for a national maximum working temperature, a heat wave furlough scheme and a climate action plan, and to support Heat Strike when temperatures go above 36C. Heat Strike is not a legal union strike but can include direct actions, protests, workplace lunchtime walkouts, awareness raising, lobbying of politicians or community actions.

You can watch from 3.19.00 here

C18 Climate emergency the next steps was a composite of motions brought by Unison and PCS.

Both had the same core - a recognition of climate change as a class issue, and the need for a rapid transition away from fossil fuels based on a just transition, public ownership and a national climate service. 

GMB had submitted an amendment to the original PCS motion. As you can see this contradicts the intention of the original motion (what we'd call a wrecking amendment) and Unison and PCS did not accept its inclusion in the composite motion.

GMB and Prospect abstained and Unite said they were supporting the motion 'with reservation', so the motion was carried.

You can watch from 2:42:40 here

What next...

There are clearly contradictions between these motions, and debates will inevitably continue. It's important that these are framed in the context of the climate crisis as an urgent global issue that affects all workers. We're very grateful to all those who held that red line strongly at TUC.

Among much else, C18 commits TUC to "a year of green trade union activity including engagement with community and climate justice groups". We think this could be a very useful platform for activity where we can take the initiative.

Watch this space for further discussion and action.

John Moloney, Assistant General Secretary, PCS:

PCS Union was closely involved with developing the original One Million Climate Jobs campaign. As climate disasters intensify, global emissions rise, and the gap widens between UK climate targets and effective polices to achieve them, the need is greater than ever for a comprehensive climate jobs plan to cut emissions across all sectors.  For PCS, we know this necessary transformation cannot be implemented effectively as the Civil Service is not designed to deliver a long term plan that requires the greatest degree of cross departmental working. That is why we have proposed the National Climate and Biodiversity Service, which would join together all net zero work in the UK Civil Service so that government operates as a coherent whole.

Faced with the government's backtracking, driven in part by misguided electoral calculations (as part of their war on woke and the alleged war on the motorist), we must redouble our efforts. Both in the trade unions and in the climate change movement we need to work together convince workers and the public that the government is wrong, but also to take the necessary actions to get this government and any future ones to adopt the right polices.

The full text of the new pamphlet is below, you can also download it as a pdf

National Climate Change and Biodiversity Service: A PCS workers’ plan for an alternative civil service

The era of global warming has ended and “the era of global boiling has arrived”, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has declared.

In those circumstances, the notion that it is business as usual for the Civil Service or society as a whole, clearly is not sustainable. There needs to be a radical overhaul of how the UK Civil Service works. This would only be one element in the solution – you still need political will and a plan – but without effective state mechanisms there is no hope in ensuring net zero.