TRADE unionists have demanded a just transition from fossil fuels and vowed to prevent a repeat of the fate of mining communities.

The composited motion, the result of motions from Inverness and District Trades Council and the STUC general council, was approved as hundreds of workers at Ineos’ Grangemouth oil and gas complex face an uncertain future after the announcement of its closure.

Moving the motion on behalf of the general council, Richard Hardy said: “Trade unions in this room and across Scotland have been at the forefront of the campaign for a just transition.

“Forty years on from the miners’ strike, there must be no more communities left behind by industrial change.”

Unite regional secretary Derek Thompson told Congress: “We know a transition has to happen, and workers in the industry have the ideas to deliver a just one that leaves no-one on the scrapheap, but the truth is, no one has bothered to ask them.

“We cannot allow these workers to become the miners of this generation.

“We know what’s needed — a worker-led transition.”