Industrial catastrophe

Gas and oil job losses 'will be worse than closure of the coal mines'

- BY PAUL HUTCHEON

SCOTLAND is heading for an oil and gas jobs “catastrophe” worse than the closure of the coal mines, it has been claimed.

Union chief Louise Gilmour made the incendiary remarks days after oil giant ExxonMobil announced the closure of its Mossmorran plant in Fife.

The UK Government's tax policies and opposition to new drilling in the North Sea have been blamed for mass job losses in the sector.

Already this year the oil refinery at Grangemouth has closed, while more than 400 jobs will go at Mossmorran next year

Speaking to the Record, Gilmour, secretary of GMB Scotland, likened the winding down of oil and gas production to more than 200,000 miners losing their jobs from 1980 to 1994.

Then Tory PM Margaret Thatcher waged war on the coal industry in a bid to defeat the miners' union.

Gilmour accused ministers of "sleepwalking" into another "industrial catastrophe".

She said: "All the promises of new jobs being made to oil and gas workers today are the same promises made to miners 40 years ago. They meant nothing then and, without urgent action, will mean nothing now.