[Closed] Grangemouth refinery dispute

If it was so important that the company knew how the workforce viewed the offer why didn't they make this very issue clear weeks ago . The dispute was originally over treatment of Steven Deans.

Given they recently moved the Grangemouth plant into a separate UK company so it could qualify for regional aid and started negotiating for said aid, this suggests the plant closing wasn't a foregone conclusion as moving assets between companies isn't 'free' and takes up lawyers and accountants times.

Actually that to me screams that they were planning this. Basically take the plant out of the corporate structure and now it will go bankrupt. Much cheaper than shutting it down as part of the main business and having to make people redundant.

Does seem like poor tactics from the union. Seems like the owners had a vastly stronger position yet the union didn't notice. Sometimes you need to know when you are going to lose and minimise losses rather than plough on regardless and lose everything.

so it appears the 2 plants where split as seperate companies,one is being liquidated, so can be sold off cheap, it also stops inneos, having to pay any redundancy pay, to f/t workers and agency staff, also suppliers have to join the queue as creditors,then there are the clear up and dismantling costs that they now dont have to pay, and the uk governmnet pick up the basic statutory redundancy for workers made redundant by the liquidators.

Then if its sold as a plant, old staff can re apply for their jobs back on new conditions of service and as new employees of a new company.

But then i may be wrong.

"I've never seen unions do anything worthwhile."

They were born of such brilliant of noble intentions.

Sadly like everything those that rise up the ranks enrich themselves or divide.

I hears that in some organisations you are actively 'urged' to join the union and pay into their fund even if you dont really want to. Nice.

Regarding the closure of the plant and loss of jobs...

What would happen if the full work force stood up to INEOS and decided 'stuff you, we're keeping the place running'

The lines are still running so don't make the reported 50 million loss etc...

Just curious...

What would happen if the full work force stood up to INEOS and decided 'stuff you, we're keeping the place running'

Inneos still have control over the bank accounts for paying and acepting money in and out.Staff wouldnt get paid and sneither would suppliers.

Sadly like everything those that rise up the ranks enrich themselves or divide.

Nonsense, you only have to look back to the 80s and the hero Scargill, who saved all the miners and UK mining whilst living like a Pauper*.

* There were some nasty rumours he made himself life president of the NMU and then had them fund a million pound grace and favours flat, but obviously these are all completely untrue

Eric Joyce has an interesting blog on the subject

http://ericjoyce.co.uk/2013/10/grangemouth-tragedy/

Please remember there are forumites that are out of a job due to this today as well. 🙁

Eric Joyce of course is a renowned voice of sober wisdom. "Following the strike" that never happened? As for buyers worrying about employer/employee relations, the fact that Ineos have no working relationship with their employees shouldn't be a concern for any company that aren't a shower of bawbags.

I feel for the workers and their families who are now out of work and with Grangemouth on their CV will find it very hard to find a new employer to take them on. But i have to wonder what they were thinking in rejecting the offer, yes its shit and worse than they were on, but as many of the workers have said on the news there is no other employer in the area. So why call their bluff when on the brink, surely it would be better to accept it and then look to move on or work to improve conditions, either way in my view is better than being kicked out of work and losing your pension and everything.

Perhaps lots of the older guys approaching retirement weren't going to let their final salary pension disappear and so bit the bullet ?

ineos website has gone down.

But i have to wonder what they were thinking in rejecting the offer,

Well no, I'm guessing they are going to be in pocket by £10m a month, which is really the point.

Why should they have payed to keep it open?

The situation apparently became desperate extremely quickly. Employees given only 3 days to decide on terms is pretty poor on the part of Ineos. Only 2 weeks ago the world was told the plant may close by 2017. The employees will feel shell shocked I imagine. Probably still struggling to take it in.

If they have one crumb of comfort then I imagine they will have the backing of governments at Holyrood and Westminster. More support than was given to those in the mining sector that was decimated earlier in the year for a similar number of job losses.

I think its been obvious from the outset that the owner(s) have been intent on closing, and have conducted a pretty careful strategy of putting the union in the frame for it. It seems to have worked: at least, the myopic press reports are putting this view forward, so they've got spin doctors working on it.

Wider stuff- there are way too many critically important infrastructure operations in the UK owned by indifferent or callous owners. This is just one of many.

As I have told the great TJ in the past unions have had their day 🙄

I work for a world wide company and our T&Cs are being squeezed in a similar manner to Grangemouth. I am sure a lot of my colleagues will now be re-assessing their desire to resort to industrial action 🙄 Our parent company(American)tried to sell us off last year but due to high "fixed" costs ie wages etc no-one was interested. There has since been a concerted effort to reduce fixed costs by introducing a voluntary leaving scheme to "allow" 40 workers to leave. Rumour has it 10 will be required to leave next year.
My group will be de-manned from 15 to 10 as from Jan 5th. No one will be made redundant/lose their job but the 5 not chosen will lose shift allowance of £7k ❗

My wife who is a senior manager in a Scottish gov dept has had no pay rise in the past 3yrs, screwed for pension and extra yrs to work!

Daughter who is a teacher in England now has to work to a Personal performance regime imposed on teachers! She did get an "outstanding" report on her first Ofsted inspection this year 😆

My son was working for a civil eng company. The senior partner retired. The partner taking over the business had a heart attack! The guy intending to take on a partnership obviously had second thoughts...... He has been fortunate to have been able to go back to his old job but that means trebling his travelling time & costs.

So, sorry as much as I appreciate the importance of Grangemouth To Scotland I have no sympathy with their actions and the fall out from them. It was obvious what was going to happen......

Sancho - Member

But i have to wonder what they were thinking in rejecting the offer

Spoke to my cousin this evening and he basically said they can't trust ineos, and they all think that they'll give ground on this only to be shafted again in 6 months or a year- so they've basically given up hope of working with them at all.

But, he also said that his colleagues (office staff mind not production) would probably accept the change of working conditions if it also came with a change of owners- how many folks he can speak for I have no idea, but he thinks it's the only hope for the plant, there was no long term future with ineos.

Most of UK industry could be closed down and stuff shipped in from anywhere else cheaper.....

Most of UK industry could be closed down and stuff shipped in from anywhere else cheaper.....

Well in that case the only conclusion has to be that UK industry is in the hands of registered charities. Bless them and their generous, benevolent, and philanthropic ways.

Commiseration to any STWers at Grangemouth. I hope that there is some positive resolution over next few days. Sounds a bloody mess all round.

According to BBC Unite will meet INEOS on Thursday and the union will agree to accept INEOS plan. I hope that a deal is reached though even then it will be a sad day for ordinary workers.

According to the BBC Unite said they [u]may[/u] agree to the INEOS plan, they haven't accepted anything.

I suspect that this particular event may not have been in INEO's plan.

I stand corrected , Unite may agree to INEOS plan.

The final salary pension scheme was a big part of the dispute, I understand. That will have turned out to be unaffordable when it was realised that investments are not performing as projected and probably (as in our case at my company) that the actuaries were using life expectancy figures from the seventies. Anybody who still expects to retire on such a scheme is living in cloud-cuckoo land.

My own employer has just finished paying around £1.5 million into the scheme for the 53 of us who joined it so as to bring it in line; we have now all agreed to move to another more realistic pension scheme.

Unite said they may agree to the INEOS plan, they haven't accepted anything

I doesn't work like that. Unite like all trade unions is a democratic organisation, it can't simply agree to less favourable terms for its members. Any decision has to be made by its members.

[i]Workers were given the grim news at a meeting with Ineos's chairman, Calum MacLean. Ineos had given the workforce until Monday evening to accept its demands for radical changes to terms and conditions but the company concluded there was not enough support.[/i]

Not being pedantic btw, it's important to remember that the position taken a trade union is always dependent on its members, I think people too often forget that.

Not being pedantic btw, it's important to remember that the position taken a trade union is always dependent on its members, I think people too often forget that.

Is the democracy not when they take things to a ballot, up until that point they are negotiating on behalf of the employees on what they think is right.

Well of course trade unions make recommendations to their members - it's their job to do so. But the decision whether to accept or reject an offer is made by the membership, not their negotiators.

I'm amazed that has to be pointed out so clearly.

Ernie, I'm amazed you believe it to be true.

Some very interesting analysis here: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/robin-mcalpine/whats-really-happening-at-grangemouth-and-what-it-tells-us

May I mention you last point Trekster regarding other people experiencing implementation of poorer conditions, etc.?

I have always struggled to understand this point of view. Particularly with the example of the teachers. I recall several threads on STW in the past when teachers were striking - or threatening to strike - over pay and conditions (particularly pensions) and being amazed at the number of people who told them to "suck it up because everyone else is getting shafted too"

What happens in two or three years if conditions worsen again for you? If your daughter was then forced to accept further reduced conditions would you tell her tough luck because it happened to me too?

Honestly depressed by this. We are just racing each other to the bottom of the food chain instead of supporting people who are fighting - not out of greed - but to preserve already hard-won conditions of employment that had previously been agreed to.

Whether people at grangemouth earn 55k or not is irrelevant to what anyone else earns. They were offered these terms and accepted them. Why shouldn't they fight to preserve them? Not saying that being 100% inflexible is the answer - times change and companies do to - but to strip it down to the basic premise that "i've had the shaft so i've no sympathy for anyone else" really don't understand i'm afraid 😕

That whole area will soon become a complete wasteland. There is NOTHING else there for people to do.Anybody got good reasons why the whole thing shouldn't be nationalised,surely it is an important enough resource?

Well - the chances are it will become a fuel terminal (such as already exist all round the country). Nowhere near as many jobs of course...

That whole area will soon become a complete wasteland. There is NOTHING else there for people to do.Anybody got good reasons why the whole thing shouldn't be nationalised,surely it is an important enough resource?

Because we have excess refining capacity in the UK, the margins are crap, the investment required each time the EU brings in new rules is huge, we're broke? Petrochemicals is marginaly better than refining in terms of margins, but it's hugely cyclical.

Personaly, I think production should have been through a nationalised company like Statoil or Arramco, but there's good reasons why we didn't go down that route too.

Ah,thanks Mr other piece of cutlery

Because we have excess refining capacity in the UK, the margins are crap, the investment required each time the EU brings in new rules is huge, we're broke? Petrochemicals is marginaly better than refining in terms of margins, but it's hugely cyclical.

Personaly, I think production should have been through a nationalised company like Statoil or Arramco, but there's good reasons why we didn't go down that route too.

Good, people are beginning to think of the economics behind it. It's terrible that lots of people could lose their jobs but this chat of buying the place out just to keep it running at great loss doesn't make sense to me.

Been a bad month for Scottish energy, with the downturn in marine renewables and this, Salmond must be sweating a bit under the collar with the lynch pins of his future economy starting to crumble. Not good for my long term job prospects either :/

mt - Member

Ernie, I'm amazed you believe it to be true.

That ultimately it's the workers themselves who decide whether to accept management's offer, not the union officers ? 😀

Ineos management agrees with that statement and have given the rejection of the offer by the workforce as the reason for pulling the plug and announcing closure.

[url= http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/438371/Grangemouth-oil-refinery-on-the-brink-as-majority-of-workers-reject-rescue-plan ]Grangemouth oil refinery on the brink as majority of workers reject rescue plan[/url]

Personally I'm amazed some people still believe what they read in the Sun that "trade union barons" make all the decisions.

Now, call me suspicious, but this Grangemouth thing stinks of backroom fat cat political manoeuvres by parties with interests across the UK as a means of undermining confidence in the Scottish Economy in a bid to sway public opinion away from independence.

Now, call me suspicious, but this Grangemouth thing stinks of backroom fat cat political manoeuvres by parties with interests across the UK as a means of undermining confidence in the Scottish Economy in a bid to sway public opinion away from independence.

Or more likely, the reluctance to embrace Fracking in the way the US has means the cost of producing ethyene in this country hasn't dropped by 66% (which the US has) in the last few years, making us hugely uncompettative. The KG cracker at Grangemouth would be ideal if Fracking went ahead as (IIRC) Wilton O5 cracker takes an (expensive as it's essentialy petrol) Naphtha feedstock.

If Grangemoth stays open it'd be a consumer of Fracked gas from south of the border.

Now, call me suspicious.......

I think conspiracy theorist would probably be a better description.

A couple of points from an interested party!
I did not vote (read sign an "irrevocable legally binding" pre-contract contract) yes on this issue for the following reasons. No union influence was considered in this decision.
I had less than 3 days to consider it.
No consultation had taken place.
The document was only a summary and open to company changes.
The offer contained a bribe of £10000 and an extra 2% pension contributions which I didn't want to take from a skint(distressed) company for my personal gain.
I could not sign for my benefit to shaft others who are due to retire in the next few months who no longer can due to changes in the rules.
I could not sign for my benefit to shaft others who will be made redundant in the next while, when they close the 3-5 plants they have already said they will close, who will get stat redundancy as opposed to their current promise.
Shift workers were asked to take double the salary drop of day workers.
I could not sign up for mandatory overtime which will impact on my family life.
I did not like the idea of committing to no industrial action for 3 years and having to walk through picket lines. (A more minor one).
I am now intrigued to see that the union is promising to sign me up for these and other changes without consulting me.
It's not about pensions and a pay freeze, there is a whole lot more to it and I am inclined to believe that this package was made as unpalatable as possible (particularly to union members) to persude us to reject it and then blame us for shutting the plant.
By the way the refinery is making more losses than the petrochemicals and will struggle to make a profit in future due to the cost of the infrastructure/services which are currently shared with PC business.
PS HL Turner for sale. 😛

By the way the refinery is making more losses than the petrochemicals and will struggle to make a profit in future due to the cost of the infrastructure/services which are currently shared with PC business.

Hmm, depressing.

Just a question. No matter how bad the deal being offered did you not think that it would be better to accept the offer rather than have no job at all or did you not think they would carry out their threat to close the refinery

Just a question. No matter how bad the deal being offered did you not think that it would be better to accept the offer rather than have no job at all or did you not think they would carry out their threat to close the refinery

Blimey, you still think it's the unions fault for the closure?

Do you also think it's better to just sign up to something no matter how bad it is? Would you?