AI-Summary – News For Tomorrow
Energy Secretary Miliband announced a plan to ensure good jobs within the clean energy sector, requiring companies receiving public funding to create these jobs. It also prioritizes trade union recognition and collective bargaining, even for offshore positions. Unions like Unite and GMB welcomed the plan, seeing it as a necessary step for transitioning workers from fossil fuel industries. Miliband emphasized that these jobs, concentrated in wind, nuclear, and electricity networks, often offer higher salaries than the national average. He framed this initiative as a response to Reform UK’s opposition to net zero, arguing they are “waging war on jobs” and confident that the public supports the opportunities and lower bills clean energy can bring.
News summary provided by Gemini AI.
He said the plan would involve measures to ensure companies receiving public grants and contracts need to create good jobs across the clean energy sector. It would also promote greater trade union recognition and collective bargaining in the clean energy sector, including when jobs are offshore.
Miliband’s announcement was welcomed by unions, from Unite to the GMB, which have long been pushing for a more detailed plan for how people will switch from fossil fuel industries to those in clean energy in the future.
Miliband said the national plan “answers a key question about where the good jobs of the future will come from”.
Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said ‘Obviously, this is a massive fight with Reform.’ Photograph: James Glossop/Reuters
As well as flagging to jobseekers what kind of green jobs are needed, the energy secretary said it would “send a signal to the mayors, regional mayors, who have lots of responsibilities in this area about where they need to be directing their further education colleges and others where the big opportunities are.
“It sends a signal to industry, who have been saying … set out what are the needs going be and how are we going to fill them.”
Miliband said the promise of hundreds of thousands of new roles in the renewables and clean energy sector would show that Reform UK is “waging war on jobs” by challenging the switch to net zero.
“Obviously, this is a massive fight with Reform,” he said. “Reformers said they’ll wage war on clean energy. Well, that’s waging war on these jobs … It’s all part of their attempt at a culture war, but I actually think they’re out of tune with the British people because I think people recognise that we need, that we want the jobs from clean energy.
“We want the lower bills that it can bring. So let’s have the argument as a country about what we’re going to do. I’m really confident we can win this argument.”
He said estimates show jobs in wind, nuclear, and electricity networks all advertise average salaries of more than £50,000, compared with the UK average of £37,000, and are spread across coastal and post-industrial communities.
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Government research suggests that 13,700 people who were out of work possessed many of the skills required for key roles in the clean energy sector, such as engineering and skilled trades.
Sharon Graham, Unite’s general secretary, said: “Well paid, secure work must be at the heart of any green transition. Unite members will welcome the commitment to 400,000 green jobs with strong collective bargaining rights. The actions set out in this plan are initial steps in what must be an ambitious strategy for tangible jobs, backed by an equally ambitious programme of public investment.”
