A campaign fighting to bring badly-needed renewables jobs to Fife will continue with a march and rally in Kirkcaldy on Saturday.
The Fife – Ready for Renewals campaign aims to persuade energy giants EDF, Red Rock and SSE to provide meaningful contracts for BiFab’s yards in Methil and Burntisland.
The three companies are planning major offshore wind farm developments in the North Sea and unions say BiFab workers have the skills to carry out much of the work.
The mothballed yard has been unable to secure any significant contracts since it was bought by Canadian company DF Barnes, with the support of the Scottish Government, in April last year.
This week’s march has been dubbed Fife – Fighting For Our Future.
A spokesman for the Ready for Renewals campaign said: “We have the yards, we have the workers and we have the community behind us.
“Fife faces many challenges — loss of jobs at Havelock, threat of job losses at Rosyth and attacks on pay at Diageo.
“Fife urgently needs a plan to bring and retain decent jobs. Scotland, now more than ever, urgently needs good quality renewable jobs if we are to help tackle climate change.”
The Ready for Renewals campaign, organised jointly by the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) and the GMB and Unite unions, previously rallied on the doorstep of EDF’s Edinburgh office in a bid to secure a slice of the £2 billion contract for the Neart na Gaoithe wind farm, to be sited just 10 miles off the Fife coast.
The move would likely bring just 200 jobs to the Methil yard, a far cry from the 400 workers and 1,000 contractors employed there at the company’s peak.
The march on September 14 will leave Kirkcaldy town square at 11.30am. It will be followed by a rally at the Old Kirk on Kirk Wynd, until 2pm.
