By David Cartwright, Unite, Glasgow Retired Members’ Branch
Since last November, a campaign has been underway to save oil refinery jobs at Grangemouth in Central Scotland. That campaign took a serious blow earlier this month when the owners confirmed that they plan to close it next summer, reducing the workforce at the refinery from 475 to just 100.
Shortly before that announcement, our Unite union branch had welcomed Chris Hamilton, Unite rep and branch convenor from Grangemouth to speak to us about the campaign to save the refinery jobs there. He warned us that a decision was expected this month. And so it turned out.
Campaign to save the jobs started last year
The refinery is run by Petroineos, a partnership between two massive corporations, Ineos and PetroChina. Last November they first put out warnings about a potential closure in 2025 and since then there has been a big campaign to try and save the jobs there, with a leading role played by Unite the union.
In his talk to the branch, Chris explained how the campaign to save the jobs had picked up momentum this Summer. During the general election campaign it dominated discussions on the doorsteps in the local area when canvassers were out. At hustings meetings, all candidates for the local MP position declared their support for the campaign. The campaign has issued 20,000 leaflets and on 3 August, 500 people showed their support by joining a March for Jobs in Grangemouth that was led by a brass band and passed by the plant on its way to a rally in Zetland Park.
The tactics of the campaign have been to go down the community route and try to influence the politicians who can have an impact on the decisions of the company. With this latest firming up of the closure plan by the owners, the campaign will have to be stepped up a level. And all those who have declared their support so far will be put to the test. It seems like a key plank of the campaign now is for a new owner to step in.
At our meeting, Chris pointed out that 400 direct jobs were under threat but there would also be a knock on effect on indirectly linked jobs in the area. 70% of the affected workers live in Grangemouth or nearby towns and villages. So the loss of the jobs would have a big impact on the area. It is also very significant for Scotland as well. It is the last oil refinery in Scotland (one of only six in the UK). It represents 4% of Scotland’s GDP and 8% of its manufacturing base.
How the campaign relates to the fight against climate change
The workers at the refinery understand the need to move away from oil and gas because of the climate change crisis. They are in favour of a just transition to green energy. But they want an approach that avoids a ‘cliff edge’ where the oil jobs disappear before the new green jobs are in place. This latest announcement by Petroineos creates a very real ‘cliff edge’ for these 400 workers.
The Grangemouth campaign is based on a programme of Extend, Invest and Transition. Simply put that means extending the lifetime of the refinery, while investing in renewable energy and making the transition to green energy. So it is not a simple ‘No’ to the move away from oil and gas. In fact, that is part of the reason that climate activists have supported the campaign and had a speaker at the 3 August rally.
In his talk, Chris gave some examples of how to re-use skills and infrastructure. One example, was that the pipes used to bring oil to shore could be re-purposed in the other direction for carbon capture and storage. This reminded me of the Lucas Aerospace workers who came up with their own ideas for making wind turbines and hybrid cars when their weapons factory was threatened with closure back in 1974.
Unite’s ‘No ban without a plan’ campaign
Unfortunately, some of the statements from Trade Union leaders in the sector come across as outright opposition to change away from oil and gas. Even Unite, one of the more progressive unions has started a campaign called ‘No ban without a plan’. That means they argue against a ban on new oil and gas licences. Even though it will take 10 years or so for those licences to translate into delivery of oil. By which time it is critical that most of our energy is delivered from green energy sources. Of course there needs to be a plan for alternative jobs but Labour say they have a plan for 650,000 jobs UK wide and Sharon Graham of Unite says she has a plan for 35,000 green jobs in Scotland. If all these ‘plans’ exist then the Labour Party and the Trades Unions should be working together on them now, and Unite should not be calling for the approval of any new oil and gas licences.
What generally seems to be absent from any of the campaigning and debates so far is the question of how we can manage a transition from oil and gas to renewables without having public control over the industries in the sector. Ineos is a British company operating in 29 countries that has revenues of 21 billion euros per year. The founder and chairman is Sir Jim Ratcliffe the current owner of Manchester United. When his company says the refinery is loss-making how do we know for sure? In a conglomerate that size how much ‘creative accounting’ goes on? – even within the other three sections of Grangemouth never mind across the company as a whole. And what interest does he have in retraining the staff in the skills needed in the renewables sector?
The Labour government continues to rely on private companies to develop renewable energy sources, just like the previous Tory government. In the sixth renewables projects auction in September, the energy secretary Ed Milliband declared it a great success because 131 projects were approved. Included in that total were 9 contracts awarded for offshore wind projects compared to zero in the previous auction in 2023. This year the Government was prepared to pay up to £73 per megawatt hour instead of the maximum last year of £44. These amounts do not reflect the fact that renewables energy is cheaper to produce. They show how the private companies need to be enticed with the prospect of good profits to come forward and bid. The auction made some progress towards climate change goals but the amount of energy obtained from offshore wind needs to move from the current 15 gigawatts to 60 gigawatts by 2030 and these latest contracts leave a significant shortfall.
The need for public ownership and workers control in the energy sector
The fight to save jobs can be the same as the fight against the climate crisis but only if we recognise that workers need to be in control of the transition and that means public ownership of energy companies like Petroineos. Private companies are only interested in the profits they can make. They are not interested in workers jobs or the effect of their operations on the environment.
Public ownership and workers control needs to extend across the whole energy sector, so that the transition from one type of job to another at the same skill level can be managed. One of the members of our union branch highlighted the complete lack of an ‘industrial strategy’ as shown by the recent announcement that Mitsubishi was planning to lay off 400 people at its heat pump factory in Livingston, just 20 miles south of Grangemouth. The fact that we face two sets of redundancies so close to each other from two very wealthy companies shows the chaos created by reliance on the ‘free market’. The threat to jobs and the threat to the planet are too serious to be left in the hands of private companies. The Grangemouth refinery should be nationalised as part of a massive programme of publicly controlled energy transition projects.
The featured image at the top of the article shows the March for Jobs in Grangemouth on 3 August. Credit: David Cartwright
