busteredwards:
It’s not the first time that plant’s been under threat, Ineos bought it from BP a few years back for buttons as it was losing money then, Ineos promised the world to the workers when they took over…They’ve simply not been able to make it work, no big surprises there!
You’ll hear the name Pat Rafferty (union bod) in some news reports, he’s a self obsessed clown! Pat drove tankers for P&O when I worked at BP, & was their union rep, any small incident involving the workers had Pat shouting about going ‘out the gate’
The man’s more interested in not losing face, than those workers welfare!
merc0447:
In real life here what happens if Grangemouth closes? Does all the petrol and diesel for forecourts come up the M74? How much will that add to the price joe blogs pays on the street.
Aside from Asda doc there is naff all in the way of employment in Grangemouth/Falkirk never mind for 800-1300 people!
A lot of fuel also arrives in Clydebank on a boat from abroad somewhere. Weather or not its capable of keeping the whole of Scotland’s petrol stations supplied is another thing though.
China possibly? From the Chinese petrochemical company which owns about 50% of the Grangemouth complex, could China end up supplying 70% of Scotland’s fuel? Or a large chunk of it, with the rest coming from south of the border.
Or could it be a ploy from the UK government to try and scupper the independence vote, by cutting the tax available from the fuel.
smiggs:
Have a pal that works for ineos
He earns well in excess of £40k a year pluss bonuses and o/t 4 on 4off for 4 cycles then 10 days off plus paid holidays!
What does your mate do at Ineos?
Does he work at Grangemouth?
Is he an employee or contractor?
What qualifications/level of education did he need to get his job?
My own view is Ineos were always going down this road, the unrelated dispute over a union member was an ideal smokescreen to shift the blame to the union.
Me? I’d have voted not to accept the companys offer. What would the next concession have been. The next demand. The next kick in the teeth.
I lost a very good job in similar circumstances 35 years ago.The men went on strike management offered something but not much ,the upshot was redundancy for most of the workers.Its going to be a miserable Christmas for a lot of folk in Central Scotland.
merc0447:
In real life here what happens if Grangemouth closes? Does all the petrol and diesel for forecourts come up the M74? How much will that add to the price joe blogs pays on the street.
Aside from Asda doc there is naff all in the way of employment in Grangemouth/Falkirk never mind for 800-1300 people!
Don’t worry about the fuel, there are hundreds of miles of underground pipelines, some dating back to 1939, the rest are operated by these subsidiaries of major refineries and fuel producers.
Esso Petroleum Co Ltd
Mainline Pipelines Ltd
Government Pipelines and Storage System
Manchester Jetline Ltd
BPA
ConocoPhillips (UK) Ltd
Total (Finaline, Colnbrook and Colwick Pipeline)
INEOS Manufacturing (Scotland and TSEP)
ESSAR
Sabic UK Petrochemicals
Geo Networks Ltd
E-on UK Plc (Gas Pipelines only)
Perenco UK Limited (Purbeck Southampton Pipeline)
Scottish Power Generation Ltd
Phillips 66
NPower CHP Pipelines
Centrica Energy (Devon)
Centrica Storage Ltd
Premier Transmission Ltd (SNIP)
Coryton Energy Co Ltd (Gas Pipeline)
It would be easy to look at their submitted accounts.
I doubt they would lie over something that could be checked so easily.
.
From how I heard it on “wake up to money” (5live) Ineos is a private company, and doesnt have to submit accounts for public scrutiny, PWC are their tax accountants.
Unite wanted to have their own accountants go in and check the figures, but Ineos have refused.
Its all very sad, another nail in the coffin off british industry
Ineos is a limited company, and like all limited companies it has to submit annual accounts to companies house, which are automatically published, anybody can see them for the princely sum of £1, and parts of them for free. What are not submitted and published are the much more detailed management accounts, which is probably what Unite wanted to see.
NewLad:
You get used to what you earn, I can’t imagine losing £50-£100pw out of my pocket!
Been there done that hope to never do it again, and I’ll never agree to a pay cut again, I’d rather take my cards and go eisewhere. once bitten twice shy
Grangemouth workers didn’t agree to the pay cut and look where its got them. They were given assurances of the future of the plant and their jobs if they agreed. I thought it would have been better to agree than to loose your job over it, especially in today’s economic climate. But that’s the unions for you.
At end of Jan 2009 the firm asked the workforce (both of us) to take a 25% paycut, and as we were like alot off others short of work we agreed, but with the agreement that it would be looked at in 3mths. anyway that came and went, and by Easter we were as busy as before, but no return to full pay despite many requests. For the next 6 mths we kept busy, but the boss refused to reinstate our pay or look at other ways to increase our earnings. At the end off October 09 me and the other driver left, on the same day, the trucks and trailers were up for sale within a week. In hindsight the boss wanted rid off us, but didnt want to pay us off, well I think anyway.
After that I would be hard pushed to do that again, hence once bitten twice shy
The firm just want to get out of coughing up for their final salary pension scheme, the pension fund being in huge deficit. It’s for the employer to pay in more, as the staff have already paid. That money is theirs, and the so-called “cuts package” involves the workforce having the whole final salary scheme stolen from them.
Then, there’s the bignobs… Not exactly turning up to meetings with a barrel around them are they?
Impoverishing people poorer than you to make someone that’s already rich even richer stinks to high heaven.
The saddest thing of all is that now the plant has been announced as “closing”, the Union are now talking about accepting the whole thieving deal!
Weak weak weak.
The government should have announced that “Since this outfit is of negative value, we hereby compulsory purchase it for £1, and nationalise it - being an essential part of the economy.”
A great opportunity has been missed here, and this is highly detrimental to Scottish devolution hopes too, since the Oil industry revenues were going to be a major part of the post-devolution “gains” for an independent Scotland.
claretmatt:
Why do we still let Unions destroy wealth producing industries?
I must have missed that bit? The biggest privately owned company in the UK? 4th largest petrochemical outfit in the WORLD?
DESTROYED? When did that happen?
smiggs:
Sympathy goes out the window as the majority of working brits are on a pittance
And so instead of bring workers wages up to the level of Ineos employees you’d advocate dragging them down to “our” level?
Once again I despair at the politics of envy displayed here. If I came across someone earning double my wage I’d wish them good luck and start planning how I too could get me some of that. I certainly wouldn’t want to deprive them of it!
The fact is that their wages and T’ & C’s have been hard fought for over many many years, in fact the type of wages that many other workers would enjoy today if the unions hadn’t been castrated and more importantly people didn’t believe what the media tells them and thus willingly turn against their fellow working man! Anyone remember the “Tesco” thread with posters gloating about fellow drivers losing their “cushy” job.
Ineos are NOT losing the type of money they say they are (clever accountant anybody?) no, they are merely the next in line of greedy corporations who see other greedy corporations pay their workers a pittance and decide that they want some of that in their pursuit of profit over everything.
If the company takes them back,they must expect another cut in wages in the near future. The problem is the same as trucking. The company is being squeezed by green taxes,sales taxes,Health & Safety, rising cost of energy & materials. The only place to reduce costs is the workforce. Tough,but fact of life. Fuel keeps rising but wages don’t. The ball is now in the management’s court. Its a tough call for both sides. The shareholders would love to dump that plant & rebuild in Holland with lower taxes,no strikes & Dutch government subsidies.
The Petrochemical plant at Grangemouth is obsolete. Its a deep water port designed for supertankers. It don’t use oil anymore it uses gas.
The management saw an opportunity when it suspended one of the Union bods.Unite had no choice but to protect their sidekick. Where they went wrong was calling a strike.
they would may have been better taking a redundancy package now because further down the line they will get further reductions in pay pensions then made redundant at a fraction of the cost now.
Sadly workers have joined us all now in the race to the bottom I sympathise with .A company based in Switzerland with a billionaire owner which pays minimal tax and is prepared to shut up shop as quick as it is tells you what you need to know about ienos.
Agree with the sentiments of several comments on here instead of attacking what workers get paid at Grangemouth those in this game should be aspiring organising and doing something to improve their wages pensions.
I notice also on the forum an awful lot of union bashing they are for all the criticism they attract the only organisations that try to give it a go in attempting to stand up for workers cannot blame them for peanut wages zero hour contracts mass of agency work and all what goes with it,bad companies long hours etc.
If not happy with them do something about it stand for a election as an official or organise yourselfs collectively to deal with issues at work.
Unfortunately above sentence will go unhead and energies would rather be spent on forming opinions attacking those who earn more than you and just rolling over and excepting their lot form their boss.
Who wants to know??..Did you buy a snack van by any chance?
