TUC Congress 2024: Unions clash over oil and gas licenses and EU alignment

This year’s TUC Congress has had its first contested motion this afternoon, as unions clashed over a composited motion titled “Industrial strategy, national security and a workers’ transition”.

The motion, proposed by Unite and seconded by GMB, with support from the smaller unions Aegis and Nautilus, including commitments to work with the government on “an industrial strategy policy that maximises our domestic energy strengths for national security”.

However, a commitment to “no ban on new licenses for drilling, before a fully funded workers’ plan guaranteeing commensurate jobs for all North Sea workers is guaranteed” proved controversial.

Delegates from Unison, the NEU and the UCU spoke against the motion.

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 The Unison delegate highlighted concerns over climate change, while the NEU delegate was more strident, quoting the slogan “there are no jobs on a dead planet” and describing the motion as entailing a “collective suicide pact”.

Replying to the opposing unions, Unite’s speaker said: “Do not ask us to give up our jobs for jobs in wind that aren’t there… stand with workers, support the composite”.

After no clear winner on a show of hands, the motion went to a card vote. Presiding, TUC president Matt Wrack announced that the composite had passed by 2,712,000 votes to 2,457,000.

The motion following this vote was also contested. It was titled “Relations with Europe” and calling for “rapid progress on reducing trade barriers” with Europe and “ongoing dynamic alignment of social protections and regulations”.

The motion was proposed by Prospect with an amendment from the Musicians’ Union. It was opposed by RMT President Alex Gordon, who argued that the advances in rail nationalisation heralded this morning would not be possible with the constraints of EU membership and with the constraints this motion entailed.

Mike Clancy of Prospect exercised his right to reply, saying there is a need to work on trading arrangements and “remove friction from the economy”. He termed the RMT’s fears about the motion “ill-founded”.

The motion ultimately passed on a show of hands vote.