Offshore workers demand a just transition

Connal Hughes, Communications Manager

Over the past two years, Friends of the Earth Scotland and Platform have worked with offshore oil and gas workers to build demands for a just energy transition. This is a groundbreaking piece of work – it's an oil industry first that hasn't happened before anywhere in the world.

We have conducted surveys, telephone conversations and face-to-face meetings with people working in offshore oil and gas. We held a series of workshops in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Newcastle with external facilitators to hear about workers’ experiences, their thoughts about the future and who holds the power in the offshore industry.

Their 10 demands focused on three main areas:

Removing barriers that make it harder for oil workers to move into the renewable industry.

Ensuring safety, job security and fair pay across the energy industry. Sharing the benefits of our energy system fairly, through public ownership and public investment.

Workers developed 10 demands and these were refined and reviewed over further phone conversations We then surveyed an additional 1092 offshore workers and over 90% of them agreed with these final demands. The demands were subsequently backed by key trade unions and climate groups