{"id":10035,"date":"2016-09-27T14:44:32","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T13:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=10035"},"modified":"2016-09-27T14:44:32","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T13:44:32","slug":"protect-north-sea-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=10035","title":{"rendered":"Protect North Sea jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Scotland\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s biggest union has called for urgent government action to protect jobs in the North Sea.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unite the union was commenting after a new report from the industry body Oil &amp; Gas UK showed a massive fall in investment from \u00c2\u014114.8bn in 2014 to around \u00c2\u01419bn in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe recognise that industry and unions can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do this alone,&#8221; said Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Scottish secretary Pat Rafferty. &#8220;We need government to take a much more active role in dealing with the major issues facing the North Sea.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIn July, we said that the UK Government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Oil and Gas Workforce Plan was woefully inadequate and fell short of arresting a decline in the industry which has led to over 120,000 jobs being axed in the past few years,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe have repeatedly called for a summit of key industry figures and ministers from the Scottish and UK governments to hammer out an action plan to save the offshore oil and gas industry. We repeat that call today.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unite also said that the UK Oil &amp; Gas report showed the importance of protecting workers from cost-cutting.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe report says that there has been a 45 per cent drop in the cost of extracting a barrel of oil or gas,&#8221; Rafferty noted. &#8220;Our fear is that a large part of that figure has come from unsustainable cuts to jobs, pay and conditions.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bCompanies have to realise that they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t prop up their profits &#8211; or create a sustainable industry &#8211; by simply attacking the offshore and onshore workers employed in the Oil and Gas industry \u00c2\u00a0who are the bedrock of their success.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just have a race to the bottom, with companies competing with each other to slash pay and conditions and turn livelihoods upside down. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bad for the industry, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bad for our members, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bad for the wider UK economy that relies on their income.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scotland\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s biggest union has called for urgent government action to protect jobs in the North Sea. &nbsp; Unite the union was commenting after a new report from the industry body Oil &amp; Gas UK showed a massive fall in investment from \u00c2\u014114.8bn in 2014 to around \u00c2\u01419bn in 2015. &nbsp; \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe recognise that industry and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7642,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[240,213,90],"wps_subtitle":"Unite calls for gov't action","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10035"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10035"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10036,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10035\/revisions\/10036"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}