Grangemouth refinery dispute

So thanks to unite the taxpayer has been conned in to stumping up millions of pounds the workers get the deal they didn’t want. Minus the £10k sweetner.
How can the union fukwits stay in a job they have been a total disaster and been played like suckers
And before anyone comes on here saying what could they have done then anything would have been better than this catastroph
Ineos have got away with murder and the union were more than useless

BTW, in the ’80s the town I live in was a serious unemployment black spot. I was on the dole for nearly 2 years. Then it was announced that Ford, a large car manufacturer, were to open a plant making electrical bits for their cars, employing over 1000 people. However, they only wanted to deal with one union and selected the IEEE, being an electrical plant made some sense. However, the biggest union in Ford UK was the TGWU who did not find this acceptable so threatened to close all Ford’s UK operations if the chosen union wasn’t them. The factory and the jobs went to Spain. Better being on the dole than not being in the T&G, eh?
Still, at least I was managing to pick up odd bits of contract work. On one site I was covering for someone on long term sick. until the union found out, and found out that my Ts&Cs were different to union staff, because I wasn’t employed by the company, I was employed by an agency. So, out I went. Still, at least the union were protecting someone’s rights, although i never found out who. Maybe ernie can explain.
Now, things are different and I work for a large organisation, and the union negotiate my wages. They negotiated a less than then inflation three year deal, effectively dropping my wages in real terms. there was no consultation, just a letter explaining what a wonderful job the union had done in securing a real terms cut in my salary. I would have raised this at the agm, but there was no agenda so it was hard to get things on to the agenda for discussion. Still at least i got a nice shiny magazine every so often telling what a wonderful job the union were doing by helping me get by by consuming fewer of the world’s precious resources and stopping me from getting angry by expressing my displeasure at the lack of consultation or discussion.

scotroutes – Member
See – I’m confused now. ernie_lych was adamant that it was the workforce, not the Union, that had to accept or turn-down the deal on offer. So – how did Unite manage to ballot the membership so quickly in order to agree to the new T&Cs today?

I refer the Gentleman to my previous comments and LD’s and BigButSlimmerBloke’s

LD – Member
…….I am now intrigued to see that the union is promising to sign me up for these and other changes without consulting me.

BigButSlimmerBloke – Member
…..Now, things are different and I work for a large organisation, and the union negotiate my wages. They negotiated a less than then inflation three year deal, effectively dropping my wages in real terms. there was no consultation, just a letter explaining what a wonderful job the union had done in securing a real terms cut in my salary. I would have raised this at the agm, but there was no agenda so it was hard to get things on to the agenda for discussion. Still at least i got a nice shiny magazine every so often telling what a wonderful job the union were doing by helping me get by by consuming fewer of the world’s precious resources and stopping me from getting angry by expressing my displeasure at the lack of consultation or discussion.

Sorry tinybits, but what you are suggesting is that ernie_lynch was wrong. I refuse to accept that and demand to know how they managed to ballot the workforce so quickly!!!

It must have been done by the night pixies, it’s the only explanation.

On a more serious, and none point scoring note, I’m pleased that the place hasn’t shut. OK, it may have less favourable employment conditions, and other benefits reduced, but it beats the hell out of no work at all, and will give the employees time to work for other work if they wish, on their own terms and without flooding the market place with labour.

Seems to me that it was all strong-arm tactics by INEOS to get money out of government…but yet the Union is still the bad guy? Strange.

Sancho – Member
So thanks to unite the taxpayer has been conned in to stumping up millions of pounds the workers get the deal they didn’t want. Minus the £10k sweetner.
How can the union fukwits stay in a job they have been a total disaster and been played like suckers

Player/game. And a very strange analysis.

And before anyone comes on here saying what could they have done then anything would have been better than this catastroph

What do you suggest they should have done?

I do like that Ineos make the plays from start to finish, set the agenda, drive the media message, lie openly to all concerned, and get exactly what they want by means of blackmail, while causing huge damage to the economy… And yet Unite are the bad guys. At the very worst you can say they’ve failed to prevent Ineos from doing exactly what they want, but was that ever possible? Similiarly you can say they’ve played the role Ineos wanted them to, but could they do anything else?

stumpyjon – Member

About time the unions reassessed their role in the workplace? Less grand standing and trying to defend the conditions of very well paid employees in dying industries and back to their roots defending those who are getting totally (and illegally) shafted.

The irony is, this is exactly how this all began. How can people still think the industrial action was about working conditions?

Ineos got what they wanted by playing on the union reps desire to be seen as power brokers. From the safety of knowing that they themselves would never lose their jobs they gambled with the livelihoods of the workers they were supposed to represent and failed, utterly and miserably. They were shown up as wee laddies completely and utterly out of their depth and should be remembered as the people who let their egos run away with themselves ushering in a new age of employment relations that will set the cause of working people back 50 or 60 years. “Know your enemy” – Ineos did, the unions didn’t, they really failed to understand who and what they were up against. if the union had stepped back and though about what was going on, they might have played a different game, instead they, well what’s the point, we all know what they did.

See – I’m confused now. ernie_lych was adamant that it was the workforce, not the Union, that had to accept or turn-down the deal on offer. So – how did Unite manage to ballot the membership so quickly in order to agree to the new T&Cs today?

Eh ? Why would they need to ballot the membership ? Are you seriously suggesting that Unite has agreed to something against the wishes of the workforce ? Are you saying that if they held a ballot the workforce would reject it ? From the news reports I’ve seen no one else appears to believe this theory, and it has been reported that the workforce have accepted management’s conditions.

You obviously have an extremely narrow definition of the term democracy. Presumably you believe that it begins and ends with a ballot.

I said previously that it’s important to remember that the position taken a trade union is always dependent on its members, I strongly maintain that. I also strongly maintain that there are no institutions in our society that are more democratic than the trade unions. They are certainly immeasurably more democratic than the Tory and Labour parties.

EDIT : I believe that the ballot which initially rejected the management plan was organised by Ineos itself, not Unite. The ballot simply confirmed that Unite negotiators were representing their member’s wishes. There was no need for a ballot.

BigButSlimmerBloke – Member

Ineos got what they wanted by playing on the union reps desire to be seen as power brokers.

As evidenced by?

Unfortunately it’s those hard won benefits the unions negotiated that makes UK companies so uncompetitive in the global market.

How do you think that the Germans, Dutch and Scandic’s cope then , as they’ve far higher costs than us.

I do like that Ineos make the plays from start to finish, set the agenda, drive the media message, lie openly to all concerned, and get exactly what they want by means of blackmail, while causing huge damage to the economy… And yet Unite are the bad guys. At the very worst you can say they’ve failed to prevent Ineos from doing exactly what they want, but was that ever possible? Similiarly you can say they’ve played the role Ineos wanted them to, but could they do anything else?

And they even got a cheaper gas contract out of BP who have never done us any favours since the sale. Jim has won on all accounts through careful planning and the ultimate bluff call! The union were played superbly but I don’t think they ever had a chance of winning. Glad it’s keeping going but no-one has won here other than JR.
Oh and still haven’t heard a thing about Stevie Deans’s fate.

Ineos clearly had an agenda and they got everything they wanted and more.

up until last week they would not have had government money etc and the workers would not have been through all the stress of being finished etc.

but the union were utterly infantile in this.
Their aim was to look after their members and they failed on every count, they utterly stiffed their members by going cap in hand agreeing to evertyhing Ineos wanted and losing any credibility in the process.

i dont blame the union for what happened but they were incompetent and have been shown up. What could they have done? jeesus try not playing bluff with the company and playing with the workers futures, try looking at the big picture and how easy it is for this company to shut down the site walk away and set up in another part of the world, they tried to get sympathy from the rest of the country, using ads in the papers etc they were just plain stupid, and instead of insulting their employers they should have seen what could have happened, realised they had little bargaining power and gone for a better settlement of the workers conditions, etc, instead of what we saw which was something from the 70’s.

Sancho – Member

gone for a better settlement of the workers conditions, etc,

When should they have done that?

from the start by realising a lot earlier on what ineos were looking for.
not rocket science really

Sancho – Member

from the start

From the start of what? You still seem to think there was some ongoing negotiation about conditions and pensions. Ineos could have had that conversation if they’d chosen, instead of going directly for the blackmail option- but a union can’t negotiate by themselves. Only one side could have made that possible.

It’s silly to say Unite should have negotiated better, when there was no negotiation at all.

Folk that are blaming the Union have to realise that the company was working on a simple FIFO approach.

They’d decided what they were going to do, and the staff/Govt/Scotland etc could FIFO.

Northwind, I take it you believe that Unite got the best deal it could for its members then that is fine
Personally I disagree and feel they let their members down with a catastophic series of negotiations with the company.

the dispute has been going on since 2008, but it all was happening in earnest since early September so plenty of time to sort it all out and never mind the dispute with Stephen Deans.

and Im not blaming the union, Ineos had an agenda the union should have done more for their members. I feel the members were let down by the union.

Sancho – Member

Northwind, I take it you believe that Unite got the best deal it could for its members then that is fine

No, I think there was no deal at all. That’s the difference between ultimatum and negotiation.

i think you miss the point, due to the poor negotiations it got to an ultimatum

I think you are being a bit naive Sancho. From what I’ve seen of the relations between INEOS and it’s worker’s the company had no intention of reaching a deal right from the very start.

I disagree (obviously). I don’t think there’s any way they can claim that negotiations had failed, when there were so many avenues they didn’t even attempt to go down. I can see the counter argument of course, that they may have decided there was no point, I just don’t buy it- too much of their actions lately have spoken of their lack of good faith.

The bottom line is, they didn’t make their case to their staff- even last week, they couldn’t convince employees to vote for these changes, and that has to be either a vote for redundancy (unlikely) or a vote of disbelief. And if they were ever going to get these changes, that was the absolute first thing they had to do, yet they hadn’t done it at the last.

The other thing that’s getting very little media attention is that they’ve renegotiated their refinery contract with BP- hey, it’s almost like they had some ulterior motives for putting the plant on the brink!

To be fair to Ineos (having actually worked there and been involved in their business costs), they needed to renegotiate with BP as their raw material costs were making it virtually impossible to make a profit. Combining that with the incredibly high labour costs (which were significantly higher than equivalent businesses in the central belt) meant that the business wasn’t sustainable. The simple fact is, a company isn’t going to keep a business open that continually loses them money.

Saying that, their approach was indefensible. Both sides need to take their fair shame of the blame, put it behind them and work together to make the business survive. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ineos sells the site though and I doubt new owners will keep the same terms and conditions for the staff.

Feel free to flame.