The UK Government’s net zero plan is “negligent at best, vindictive and cruel at its worst”, according to the boss of one of the UK’s biggest trade unions.
GMB general secretary Tim Roache told the Trades Union Congress (TUC) yesterday that, despite a government call for a move to a cleaner economy, many jobs had “passed the UK” by.
He also seemed to hit out at a contractor associated with a large wind farm development proposed by EDF off the east coat of Scotland.
He added that jobs and contracts”had frequently gone offshore, as UK yards “make redundancies or close”.
Mr Roache proposed a motion that he claims would create “thousands” of green energy jobs through progressive taxation and investment.
GMB Union claim any plan to raise funding through increasing utility costs to bill payers would “hit the poorest hardest”.
Mr Roache called it a “green poll tax” and appeared to hit out at Italian energy contractor Saipem and its involvement in the Neart Na Gaoithe wind farm, a £1.4bn development planned for the outer Firth of Forth.
He said: “The bulk of the wind (turbine) jackets our members will see from their living room windows will be manufactured in Indonesia for an Italian contractor, and transferred 7,000 miles on diesel burning ships back to the Fife coast where local people will pay for them through their electricity bills.
“This strategy is negligent at best, vindictive and cruel at its worst.
“The communities decimated by Thatcher and since blighted by the explosion of insecure work and the Amazon economy are crying out for the chance to make things again.
“To once again feel that pride of being the engine room of the nation, to lead the green industrial revolution.
“It’s possible to save the planet and make sure people have decent, well paid jobs – the Government just currently has no plan to make that happen.”