800 jobs axed as union dispute shuts fuel plant
HUNDREDS of workers face the axe at one of the UK’s biggest oil and chemical sites due to a bitter dispute between its owners and the Unite union.
Ineos yesterday told staff it will close the Grangemouth petrochemical plant in Scotland, with the loss of 800 jobs, after the union rejected a £ 300million “survival plan”.
The plant, which supplies 80 per cent of Scotland’s fuel, has been shut for more than a week as part of an escalating battle over pay and pensions.
Ineos said it had “no option” but to call in a liquidator as the plant, near Falkirk, is losing £ 10million a week.
Its billionaire founder and chairman Jim Ratcliffe warned that, unless the union lifts the threat of strikes, the adjacent oil refinery could also be closed, putting the jobs of all 1,350 Grangemouth workers at risk.
Employees leaving a staff meeting called the decision to close the plant “shocking”. One said:
Shocked workers leave the plant yesterday after hearing of job losses “There are folk in there who have a husband or wife working here too. That’s it. Folk will be lucky if they have a house at Christmas.”
Bosses blamed union intransigence for the closure.
Grangemouth Petrochemicals chairman Calum MacLean said: “We have tried our hardest to convince employees of the need for change but unsuccessfully. There was only ever going to be one outcome to this story if nothing changed and we continued to lose money.”
Unite’s Scottish secretary Pat Rafferty said the workforce was “devastated” and claimed the petrochemical closure was Ineos’s intention “all along”.
He added: “We have made further proposals in a last- ditch effort to stave off these catastrophic job losses which we believe is tantamount to economic and industrial vandalism.
“Make no mistake – one man is holding this workforce and this country to ransom and that man is the Ineos owner Jim Ratcliffe.”
But Falkirk MP Eric Joyce hit back saying: “Ineos has been flagging likely cuts for months but instead of engaging with the situation and organising a coherent plan to save jobs, Unite called a strike over a petty issue related to Labour Party internal politics.”
The 2.6- mile complex is Scotland’s biggest industrial site and is worth about £ 1billion to the economy, supporting 10,000 jobs.
The site includes the Forties pipeline, which carries around a third of North Sea oil.
AA president Edmund King said the dispute could see the price of petrol rocket. Refinery closures last year led to a 20 per cent spike in wholesale prices.