It appears Unite have made an almighty u-turn now that Ineos has called their bluff?

The company suggests it will invest 300m in a site, explains where it needs to be in terms of its cost structure if it is to make the investment. The union come along and start flexing its muscle which results in 800 people losing their jobs!! On the back of this potentially a further 500+. Did they think the company wasn't serious and would bow down to messers Dean and Rafferty? or have they hopped into a Tardis back to the mid 1970s?

I haven't mentioned the rouge/saintly union official that started all of this, Mr McClusky you have a lot to answer for in the way you run your union.

Perhaps if you were in a union, you wouldn't feel the need to occasionally opine that you haven't a pay rise for X years (so why should anyone else).

Ineos "Do it my way"
Union "No, you do it MY way"
Ineos "We'll shut the plant"
Union "Don't believe you"

Archetypal situation of Management V Union, both more bothered about willy-waving than trying to see the other's point of view.

Could be wrong but that's how it looks.

It's also pretty much the only sort of story involving a union that you'll see. So, like stories about social workers, you don't get to read the positive ones.

Mind, if you want to see this as a textbook case on industrial relations ...

"So imagine an electricity provider is having a spot of bother over pay and pensions.

"A perverse workforce are refusing to make themselves worse off and believe the firm is in financial distress. What's the management's next move?" [my emphasis

I do wonder how many would simply accept everything that such a management announces, and agree instantly to making themselves worse off. Or whether any objection to this would be called "willy-waving"?

[url=http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/could-public-ownership-be-worse-than-refinery-farce.22488035Full article[/url

I've been doing a bit of background reading and I wouldn't want to be negotiating with Jim Ratcliffe, his history suggests he's a "My way or the highway" type who is well used to using brinkmanship to get his way.

That seems to be the agreed situation.

But it certainly doesn't make for good industrial relations, and casts the union (and I am no fan of McCluskey, personally) in a rather different light.

But as I said - very few UK news outlets will ever cover a union in a positive manner.

Although I also think that that op-ed is interesting in its analysis of his style of management as being quite prevalent in the UK today.

My personal experience of UK management, based on a working life that goes back to the early 1980s and covers a lot of companies, is that management is either scared of confrontation and avoids it at all cost, no matter how detrimental, or management is essentially confrontational, and sometimes corrupt with it.

I've managed at a day-to-day level in my trade (being responsible for a paper hitting deadline, for instance), but have never considered full-time management as a career move I wanted to make - I prefer the work I do, frankly, and I hate meetings, but also have far too short a fuse. I have massive, massive time for the work that ACAS does, largely because of that latter point (I really don't know how they do it) and that's as having experienced their work first hand.

Neither side can come out of this covered with glory, Unite had their bluff called after they were put in a no win situation and Ineos's negotiating style is my way or the highway.

You couldn't be more wrong Graeme. Ineos, at a stroke, has shown the sort of decisive action needed to run a large competitive and viable commercial operation.The bully boys of Unite chose to follow the course of confrontation, puffing themselves up at press conferences, and escalating the situation with the sort of outmoded Socialist rhetoric not heard since Scargill marched the NUM into oblivion. Their very public humiliation was long overdue.

The sad part is, that those feather bedded career Union Officials, will be unlikely to face the redundancy consequences of their actions, unlike the resident workforce, perhaps overly confidant that as Grangemouth is a huge entity, it's very size and longevity would make them bullet proof, choose to believe this bunch of clowns. Seriously, which part of "loosing ten million pounds a month" did the average Joe not understand?

The old adage, "He who pays the piper calls the tune" was never more relevant, than today in the East of Scotland.

One of Ratcliffe's conditions is a no-strike agreement.
On the face of it, any Union is going to see that as anti-Union, ultimately giving Ratcliffe the power to impose pretty much any conditions he likes, at any time, with the Union only able to oppose his actions through the courts.
I know he's offering a £15k sweetener but, without the worry of the ultimate sanction of a strike, he could get that money back through salary degradation, increased hours, reduced benefits, all sorts of channels.

Pretty sure I said most of that...

You expect any union to swallow an end to any redundancy packages and at the same time be told that there will be redundancies?

As I said, neither side had covered themselves in glory, While McCluskey completely misjudged the situation thinking it was an attempt to push uncalled for reforms through on the coat tails of a dispute about the sacking of a union rep. Ineos have been displaying the traits of "management" of the 70's too.

The part where they do not believe it to be the truth, and believe rather that money is being shuffled around to enable such a claim.

Y'know – a bit like Starbucks claiming they don't make any profit in the UK.

The bottom line is we are talking about people's jobs. Scotland's heavy industry, Ravenscraig, coal mines, Linwood, most shipyards are gone, although I fully expect that Grangemouth will continue,

I'd expect shortly that there will to be an announcement from Ineos welcoming the new and constructive attitude from the Unite Union ..... a moratorium of at least 6 months on the petro chemical plant closure.....and a photo opportunity of the Great and the Good in the rain, for all to express complete confidence in the future of Grangemouth......its strategic importance to Scotland....and a small impromptu press conference as each eagerly disclose their own crucial parts in resolving this debacle.

Ratcliffe will of course use the next 6 months to scew many more tens of millions out of a Uk/Scottish Government than has been whispered down a telephone line already, prior to confirming a permanent future for all of the plant....greatly improving his balance sheet to the chorus of shareholder's approval....and the remaining workforce will have long memories of their Unions complete routing.

By someone whose business practices are about as savoury as as a pile of dog poo?

Amazing what some people seem ready to applaud.

You trumpet that as if it's a good thing

This is completely irrelevant in this case. The company laid out their position, unless you think you can push them around - which McClusky quite clearly did - where the profits lay in the group is a complete red herring.

The company has done exactly what it said it would do - which would suggest the plant generates the poor returns the management suggested. Ratcliffe maybe a lot of things but a fool doesn't appear to be one of them.

A no strike agreement appears to work in the large car manufacturing plants so I am again unsure as to why all the concern, not surprised mind!!

At the end of the day if employees are not happy working for Ratcliffe no one is stopping them finding another job.

Plus ...consider this ...

Because the oil that the refinery uses is low in ethane, the byproduct that it sells to the petrochemical plant is allegedly dearer than they could buy-in from the US.
OK, that has a ring of plausibility about it.

But Ratcliffe is saying that if the petrochemical plant doesn't get £300m spent on it to be able to process the US product, then the refinery will also likely have to close.
Huh?
Is he effectively saying that the refinery that supplies something like 70% of Scotland's petrol will have to close if its byproduct customer doesn't [ustop[/u buying that byproduct from it?
That does NOT have a ring of plausibility about it.

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-24671184Agreement reached[/url.

... which the union did not believe, saying that 'create accounting' was the reason that the company claimed it was losing money when it was not in reality.



No, it's not. Any more than the use of vertical trading (if I remember the term correctly) is one of the reasons that domestic fuel bills are so high and the companies get to claim they're paying a fortune to wholesalers when they're actually pretty much paying it to themselves.

If the company is using creative accounting to manipulate its finances so that it can claim to be far worse off than it is, in order to shove down pay, pensions, terms & conditions etc, then it is light years away from being a "red herring".



Because it's a stonkingly brill market for someone hunting a job, isn't it? You don't live in "the real world", do you?

We shall see what transpires but I'll be surprised if Ratcliffe goes down the workforce-consultation route that is common in the Japanese-originated car plants.
It doesn't seem to fit his style at all.


Aaah, I love the smell of Victorian Britain in the morning ...

I'd agree with that. Admittedly only going from my own experiences and observations but in both public and private sector workplaces, what I've seen, backs up your point. Management is either too friendly and unwilling to confront people doing something wrong, or treats people like sh|t. Often, in large organisations, both at the same time! The higher/middle management will treat people very badly and almost be looking for confrontation and something that's wrong however minor. And the Junior management will be too friendly, especially with certain people, and not pull people up who aren't doing their job.

Scarily similar in looks and management styles...

Perhaps.
Have you tried a picture of Simon Cowell with a wig on and compared him with the guy Mark who ran the Grosvenor (or Grovesnor as he used to call it)?
Separated at birth I would say.
lol

Your struggle with comprehension shows yet again - the point about it being a red herring is this - it is irrelevant whether the company is moving money around it had a stated position that it made as a condition of the investment. McClusky being bouyed by the bullying of Milleband at the Labour conference told Ratcliffe to put up or shut up and was duly shown to be well out his depth. The fact he was prepared to risk so many jobs on such bravado should have anyone with half a brain questioning whether he is fit for purpose.

Yet we shouldn't question the motives of a company willing to shut down a refinery just to show tough they are? Or should people just accept a company's position whenever it is stated without complaint or attempt to change it?