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OFFSHORE oil and gas bosses are sacking workers without pay, blaming coronavirus and falling oil prices, the RMT union warned today as it called for urgent action.
The North Sea workforce has already been slashed by nearly 40 per cent, the transport and maritime union reported.
RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “Oil and gas companies are unilaterally sending staff home with no regard to their future income, work or health.
“Employers have failed to engage with offshore trade unions over standardising the industry’s response to coronavirus, even when there have been cases diagnosed on North Sea platforms, yet the British government stands by and watches thousands of skilled energy workers being dumped without any comment whatsoever.”
The Offshore Co-ordinating Group of trade unions and the Scottish TUC were set to meet Scottish Energy Minister Paul Wheelhouse later in the day.
Mr Cash said the union hoped the talks “deliver something meaningful,” adding that the talks also “serve to demonstrate the gaping hole in the British government’s response to the Covid-19 crisis offshore.”
