Refinery chief hits out at union pickets
UNION activists were branded ‘turkeys voting for Christmas’ yesterday after picketing supermarkets that buy fuel from Scotland’s only oil refinery.
Members of the trade union Unite began industrial action this week over the treatment of Stevie Deans, a shop steward at the Grangemouth refinery in Stirlingshire.
The Labour activist, who is chairman of his local constituency party, was involved in the furore over the selection of a candidate in Falkirk and is being investigated by plant owner Ineos over issues linked to the row.
Last night, Ineos bosses accused Unite of putting the refinery’s future at risk after members were seen protesting outside the UK headquarters of fuel customers Morrisons and Asda.
Calum MacLean, chairman of Ineos subsidiary Grangemouth Petrochemicals, said: ‘Unite seems hell-bent on trying to close this site. We are losing £10million a month and desperately trying to stem these losses.
‘To go to our customers’ offices and try to get them to stop trading with us is like turkeys voting for Christmas.’
But Unite said it was ‘ensuring all relevant parties, both in the UK and internationally, are aware of Ineos’s unethical behaviour’.
The increasingly bitter battle has delayed separate talks over cost cuts that Ineos claims are vital to save Grangemouth Petrochemicals from closing by 2017, after losing £576million in four years.