A BRANCH of the GMB union has supported calls from the Scottish TUC to force EDF Renewables to keep their promises to bring wind farm fabrication work to BiFab in Fife.
The London regional branch will submit a motion at the GMB annual conference in Brighton next month, calling for measures to ensure firms in the renewable energy sector are obliged – as a condition of subsidies they are paid – to have a UK-based supply chain for developing and running the industry.
The motion will also call for workers who are directly employed, including those employed by contractors, to be covered by collective bargaining agreements.
EDF supplies London with electricity and its renewables arm has said it is still “going through a procurement process” over the £2 billion Neart Na Gaoithe scheme, 10 miles offshore in the Firth of Forth.
It has refused to comment on “speculation” about where the work could go.
READ MORE: First Minister pledges support for BiFab as unions vow to save its yards
The STUC have said little of the work fabricating jackets for the wind turbines would be done in Fife and unions fear such contracts could be awarded to countries as far afield as Indonesia, with the Karimun Fabrication Yard already in the frame.
Warren Kenny, the GMB’s regional officer said: “This is a huge £2bn wind farm in the sea off Fife by EDF who supply London with electricity. The plan is to get the work done in Indonesia.
“We are looking at a green globalised supply chain unless we stop it.
“We recognise that renewable energy sources are a valuable and growing source of low-carbon electricity into the national grid. We also recognise that for some time subsidies will need to be paid to investors to develop and run these energy sources.
He continued: “Environmental levies will add £10 per week to household energy bills by 2021/2 according to the Office for Budget responsibility.
“So, households who are funding this project must demand work in the former Fife coalfields.
“Whoever pays the piper should call the tune that these jobs must go to Fife yards in the former Fife coalfields.”
Kenny added: “At our congress next month, we will be calling on the Labour Party and TUC to adopt certain measures to secure decent jobs in the renewables industry and its supply chain.
“These measures include an official register of all companies in the sector who are in receipt of public subsidies from household energy bills or from taxpayers; companies on the register and all their contractors building and running projects being covered by a new national recognition and collective bargaining agreement which would apply to all workers in the sector; and subsidies as a matter of principle being paid to investors from a progressive general taxation system.”
Nicola Sturgeon this week renewed her pledge to back BiFab, and told MSPs her administration would “do everything in our power” to protect the company’s Fife yards.
Under questioning by Labour leader Richard Leonard, she said the Scottish Government should be “judged on its actions” over BiFab, which it helped to save in 2016.
The deal with Canada’s DF Barnes ensures the Scottish Government remains a minority shareholder.
Sturgeon told the chamber: “The Scottish Government of course has a financial stake on behalf of the taxpayer in BiFab.
“Not only do we want it to succeed for all the reasons Richard Leonard and others do, but we want to see it succeed on behalf of the return to the taxpayer as well.”
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