For months, the Unite trade union has been calling the bluff of Grangemouth’s management. Ineos has said the plant is losing £10 million a month and it has offered to invest £300 million upgrading it – but they wanted workforce reforms, including a two-year pay freeze and the end of final-salary pension schemes (ie, pretty much what the rest of us have been used to for years).
The unions refused, and wanted the cash anyway. The owners said no: shareholders were already losing money and could not afford to lose more. Calum MacLean, chairman of Ineos Grangemouth, was fairly stark in his assessment:
‘People need to realise that as a site, this site’s lost £150 million per year for the last four years. It’s got a pension fund which is £200m in deficit and it is on the point of going bust, and if it wasn’t for the support of the shareholders, who are funding those losses, there’s a very serious situation here which means the site may not start up again.
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