INEOS set to close Grangemouth Refinery in Scotland

[cappy]

show me an area of massive unemployment and you will see a area where unions tried to hold companies to ransom ie .....you cant touch me im part of the union.......them days are gone but the unionbosses can afford to give money to a party whether you like it or not.......if these bloated fat union men are so smart....whydont they start businesses......talking the talk but cannot do anything else

[Chris Allman]

Jim,

I never mentioned you or said anything about you.

[robpage]

Over the forty three years of my working life from 16 - 59 , I belonged to the MNAOA , who were there , not wonderfully effective Deep Sea , but I cannot speak high enough of John Powell who got us a very good deal on the Ferries and had the foresight to tie up a redundancy package in times of plenty , when no body ever believed redundancy would come , then to NACO the Co-operative management union , again a wonderful communicative association who did no wrong in my eyes either . I have in that time dealt with conveners , shop stewards and officials of the NUS , the EEPTU , the AEU the T&GWU and their successors , I am glad , after hearing the words of wisdom of the full time officials that I never paid one penny to be advised by an idiot.

My father was a NUM shop steward , and I learned of the big lunches and expense account trickery direct from him , as a deeply embedded practice that was too big to kill in those days , despite some of his personal efforts , I believe in Socialist principles , but we have had no Socialist Party since Keir Hardy died , and teh next honest Union man or Labour politician I meet will be the first one , How sad that Dennis Skinner , love him or hate him is about the only Labour man left in the House of Conmen

[Louis the fly]

Very surprised to read all the union bashing comments from my fellow ex seaman who are usually too bright to fall for all the spin.
If you look closely at what Ineos are demanding from their employees it not just a change in pensions but a complete ripping up of their terms and conditions which have been negotiated and agreed between company and workforce. The union have also promised to withhold any action until December to allow talks to proceed. This was rejected by Ineos who closed the plant.
In this present age of zero hour contracts, agencies replacing employer's, part time low wage jobs and workers going years without a pay rise, unions are needed more than ever. Many would like to see a return to Victorian values were the peasants doffed their caps, scrambled in the gutters for pennies thrown by the gentlemen and the workhouses were in full operation.
In the past many unions were corrupt including the N.U.S. but now is the time to look at the future, not the past, and give our children and grandchildren some hope that their lives can be brighter.

[Chris Allman]

I think Louis that jobs even with reduced terms are better than the dole and all that brings and I am sure the families of those at Grangemouth would agree with that. The site is losing £10 million a month, I would be very surprised if any business can stand for that type of loss very long before folding. The workers are more highly paid than most, so a pay freeze would not be too bad, certainly better than the dole. With regards to pensions, in my last employment I paid 11% of my salary towards my pension and it was hard at times but I am reaping the benefits now. Non contributory pension schemes are becoming a thing of the past and people are just going to have to adjust or lose out. I would have thought that without the bullying rhetoric from the union, most of the workers would have chosen to have kept their jobs. I don't know about unions being corrupt in the past but leopards don't change their spots and therefore I don't think the unions have changed much and still rule as they always have.

[Captain Kong]

Whilst I have been a Union Member, NUS and MNOA/NUMAST all my working life, you have to look at the situation in a different light these days.
First, Harold Wilson, when he was Labour Prime Minister, sent all the manufacturing jobs overseas to the third world countries with him signing the Lima Agreement in 1967.
millions of jobs lost.
Ship owners not being too keen on Seamens Strikes holding up ships, cargoes and schedules flagged out with foreign third world crews. Lord John did not lose out, still made himself a millionaire on the backs of Seamen. [ What happened to All the assets, Properties etc, and money of the NUS. ?????? paid for and bought by Seamen, ]
An employer today can now please himself who he employs, what he is prepared to pay and where he employs them, It is an International Market Place today.
He does not have to manufacture in the UK anymore, All our jobs are fast disappearing overseas, the Worker in the UK has to compete with the Worker in China, Bangladesh, Philipines and so on. The British Worker may not like it , but what else can he do but accept the conditions and wages offered or do without a job. The Benefits for the Unemployed are paid for by the Workers paying taxes and NI. Less Workers less money in the coffers and then less money available for the unemployed on Benefits,.
A downward spiral, soon we will become a Third World country ourselves, then maybe we will get Aid from China.
Unions were a good thing in the past when we had the jobs of British based employers and we exported to the world, we do not have that luxury to day.
A job is a job, hang on to it.
The Unions chose to ignore this fact. Every Union Boss ends up as a millionaire, with house, cars, expenses, the best of everything for Life. the worker, member who voted him in
loses his job. They are all a bunch of gangsters, I had a lot of dealings with the bersterds when I was in the NUS on Strike.
Cheers
Brian
.

[John Arton]

The Grangemouth refinery was owned by BP and I have been there a couple of times loading chemicals both when it was under BP control and later INEOS. When it came under INEOS control they, as has happened in virtually every refinery in Europe, was to contract out all the maintenance work etc. I have to admit that once this happened the Refinery became a better maintained and tidier place with INEOS directly employed personnel only actually being in charge of operating the refinery and the terminals. The average salary of INEOS employers is said to be £40000 p/a so surely there must be some room for compromise.
On a slightly different note I once had to organise and run a 25 year survey on the small chemical tanker (ex. Buries ship). This involved a large amount of ballast tabk cleaning and steelwork repairs. My company gave me 14 days to complete but we finished in 10. There was some great local contractors that I managed to get hold of with the use of the yellow pages and our local agent.
For mud removal I phoned a local company who sent down a big vacuum truck (similar to the things you see councils using for drain clearing) along with three guys who immediately went tank diving into the double bottoms that were only around 1.5 metres deep in parts and in a little over 32 hours had sucked around 200 tons of mud out of them. I then got hold of the local shipyard (one of Freds yellow ones was in their dock at the time undergoing dry docking) and they sent down three welders and welders mates who cut out loads of wasted frames and stringers in the wing tanks that were only around 750mm wide in places and they worked like Trojans for the 10 days, doing around a 12 hour day each. The end result that after 10 days this 25 year old ship passed its special survey with flying colours. As a thank you I held a bar-b-que for all involved with all the goodies being provided by the local butcher, baker and greengrocer who I had made friends with and was purchasing all our ships stores from. Got the customs to allow me to open the bond and we had a right royal do with not only the workers who had been involved in the work but a number of the locals who daily had been taken there evening stroll past us (we were on an open to the public layby berth right up at the top end of the harbour), so we invited them on board for drinkie-poo's too.
rgds
JA
p.s
There is now a "tag cloud" on every post. What is this "cloud" that has crept into internet usage. Clouds to me are either cirrus stratus, cumuli-nimbus, stratus , mares tails. etc that you stare at observing the weather, just before that shitehawk drops its load on your face, I am confused

[cappy]

to me the unions have done it again....hundreds out of work .....how can anyone losing money .......stay in business.......sorry but whendid a union go out of business.......will the union man be out of work oh no he will still be dreawing his wages fighting for non existen jobs and drawing his inflated wage till retirement.....wher will the union funds go.... to keep the union delegates in jobs to pay the union men.....does any man know of a union delegate not on a big pension when retired ......delegates should have no more income than the average of that mens union .........great sadness for the men out of jobs now when will they learn.....regards cappy from shields

[Jim Brady]

The site was loosing £10million a month whilst it was running,looks like this strike was the company's get out of gaol card to me,they must be laughing all the way to the bank.I do believe in constructed strikes and I believe that some bent union reps were in the pocket of the management.Who knows could be so in this case.I always remember when I was in the finance game and going through the books around about December I would notice that normally good customers were not making their weekly payments.Why because they worked in Fords and they were on strike,I don't know how many years this happened but it was a regular occurrence every year.December,January and February a bad time for selling cars,whats the answer get them to go on strike!!!Fords pay rise was in January,tell them in November what it will be that they are getting,offer them 2% they wont like that the union will want 5%,there is no way that they are getting that.Out the gate brothers and out they went.Every Ford worker I spoke to was going bananas Christmas again and no bleddy money.Were the reps paid to bring them out,it suited Fords to the ground no production which is what they wanted,no holiday pay and no wages to pay.
I was told (I cant say by whom) in July the year of the dockers strike without there being any sign of a strike at the time."There will not be any Liverpool dockers by Christmas".I laughed at the idea I said they will not beat the Liverpool Dockers.I was told by my source there will be a strike and the Dock Board are determined for once and for all they will not be held to ransom by the Lpool dks and no matter what they will go out the gate and they will not come back through it.The rest is history.That was well constructed.
Regards.
Jim.B.

[robpage]

louis , I was at sea twenty + years and 20 + years in factory management , the facts of life in industry are hard in the current climate , The refinery is to stay open , It is only the petrochemical side to close , now that is from INEOS , the way Alec Salmon and Unite were spinning it I thought the site was to close totally .

From the Financial Times


The closure of Grangemouth, the Ineos-owned petrochemicals plant in Scotland, has been a long time coming.The facility, like most of its European peers, has come under pressure on several fronts. Petrochemicals production depends on economies of scale and cheap feedstock, much of which has been missing in Europe where the sector has struggled under slow demand and overcapacity. This, coupled with a high cost base relative to international rivals, has prompted several plants to close in recent months or companies to review their activities.
“Europe as a whole has a fairly high cost position, in particular compared with the US, where the industry is benefiting from the boom in shale gas production and the ability to make low-cost ethylene from ethane,” says Alex Lidback from the chemicals research service at Wood Mackenzie, the consultancy.“Petrochemical crackers [plants] in the US are making a fortune, while those in Europe are running at a loss. It’s a situation of the haves and the have-nots,” he adds.
France’s Total said last month it planned to invest €160m before 2016 to adapt its petrochemicals plant in Carling, to “restore its competitiveness”. The lossmaking steam cracker at the site will also be shut down. Versalis, the chemicals business of Italy’s ENI, launched a similar “transformation” programme this year in an attempt to boost competitiveness.Many companies are looking to change their feedstocks to reduce costs. Imports to Europe of propane for the production of chemicals have increased, Mr Lidback says.Others are looking to ship cheap shale gas from the US. One of the proposals put forward by Ineos was to transport ethane derived from shale gas to Europe to run its “cracking” plants. It has already invested €100m in an import terminal at its chemicals plant in Rafnes, Norway, and signed contracts to supply it with large quantities of ethane derived from shale gas. It had wanted to do the same at Grangemouth.
The closure is unlikely to affect Europe’s ethylene production. Ineos’ petrochemicals plant has two ethylene units that together represent about 4 per cent of Europe’s capacity, according to Wood Mackenzie.While Ineos has promised to keep its Grangemouth oil refinery running, the loss of the petrochemicals plant could change the cost base, however. There are generally significant synergies between refining and chemical operations, with the latter providing a market for the refinery’s products.Nevertheless, Jonathan Leitch from Wood Mackenzie says on a standalone basis Ineos’ oil refinery “is not one of the weakest assets in Europe by any means, operating in the second quartile” of an assessment of 100 refineries.
Europe’s refineries are under pressure from higher energy costs, overcapacity and low-cost rivals. The shift from gasoline to diesel has also had a big impact. A few years ago, European refineries would normally have exported the surplus gasoline to the US and west Africa. However, with higher refinery outputs in the US, partly due to shale gas production, the US is importing less gasoline and starting to compete with Europe in export markets.Wood Mackenzie’s benchmark refining margin turned negative in September. While the “margin environment has improved slightly” since then – they turned positive for the first time this week since late August – they are still very weak, says Mr Leitch.

The Warning has been there for some time . I pointed out that UNITE were ignoring it and spinning a fight out to their men , They want to bear in mind play hard ball and the refinery may just become uneconomical as well . I am NOT Union bashing per se / I as many posts on different threads will tell , am a believer in the necessity of organised labour , but I have seen destruction caused by the Union leaders Greed for Power , and Unite have already a bloody nose ion Scotland , this was a good political opportunity to show strength , it has cost a couple of thousand jobs , because they flexed the Union muscle , hey , but I would never bash them , my Christmas wont be unemployed , I am retired on a pension , that I saw savaged to save Jobs . Maybe I should have stood firm and held my Final salary pension , and said sod the World . This is the Real world of Global Manufacturing . I don't need to losten to spin , I research what I see as the background , and I don't use the Daily Mail for it either .