Grangemouth dispute: Ineos says petrochemical plant will close

Thrugelmir

tberry6686 wrote: »

The fact of the matter is that the union were told that refusal to accept what Ineos were offering would probably result in the plants closure. The union didn't believe them and thought they were bluffing,

Sounds like the 70's again.

grizzly1911

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Sounds like the 70's again.

Yep poor human resource management and poorly led unions.

Do the Germans suffer in the same way or do they work together?

Perelandra

Now it risks destroying good Scottish jobs. This climate of fear has been created to try to force working men and women into signing away their rights and the pensions for which they have saved all their working lives.

Are they being asked to sign away accrued rights? Or only change new contributions going forward?

If the former, then I'd have a lot of sympathy for the workers. If the latters, than shame on Unite for misrepresenting the situation.

CLAPTON

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Yep poor human resource management and poorly led unions.

Do the Germans suffer in the same way or do they work together?

In Germany, people respect the contribution that private enterprise makes and understand that companies have to make profits to survive.
Unions understand the need to work constructively with industry for the greater good of everyone.

Enterprise is of course easier to start up there as there is no minimum wage.

Loughton_Monkey

Perelandra wrote: »

Are they being asked to sign away accrued rights? Or only change new contributions going forward?

If the former, then I'd have a lot of sympathy for the workers. If the latters, than shame on Unite for misrepresenting the situation.

I am pretty sure that it would not be legal to deny accrued rights. They were contractual. The pension scheme itself is subject to rules and it's not the employer's money. Nor the employee's come to that.

Of course there's no legal problem with stopping the scheme by chaging the contract of employment, and go forward with something completely different - like a new money purchase arrangement.

What often happens in such situations is that the employees tend not to trust the 'old' scheme and will try head over heals to shoot themselves in the foot by transferring their Final Salary value into their own money purchase scheme. Thereby losing themselve huge amounts of guaranteed money. There are protections in place to discourage this, but a stupid employee combined with an unscupulous so-called "IFA" can be a very dangerous mixture....

grizzly1911

CLAPTON wrote: »

In Germany, people respect the contribution that private enterprise makes and understand that companies have to make profits to survive.
Unions understand the need to work constructively with industry for the greater good of everyone.

I think you will find that most employees fully understand and appreciate your first point

I think you will also find that Unions also endeavour to work constructively do the same here.

For some reason owners and managers here believe they know best, whereas in Germany they acknowledge that they may not always be right.

The FT reports Germany is out on limb. "Of the other 27 EU countries, 21 have statutory minimum wages and the rest have collectively agreed levels that cover more of the workforce than those in Germany. Among the 34 rich countries in the OECD, 25, including the US, have minimum wages."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e0ab43f4-2775-11e3-8feb-00144feab7de.html#axzz2ig2eoeKi

grizzly1911

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

I am pretty sure that it would not be legal to deny accrued rights. They were contractual. The pension scheme itself is subject to rules and it's not the employer's money. Nor the employee's come to that.

Of course there's no legal problem with stopping the scheme by chaging the contract of employment, and go forward with something completely different - like a new money purchase arrangement.

What often happens in such situations is that the employees tend not to trust the 'old' scheme and will try head over heals to shoot themselves in the foot by transferring their Final Salary value into their own money purchase scheme. Thereby losing themselve huge amounts of guaranteed money. There are protections in place to discourage this, but a stupid employee combined with an unscupulous so-called "IFA" can be a very dangerous mixture....

In general terms , not specific to this case, what is the chance of another Maxwell scenario these days?

Kennyboy66

CLAPTON wrote: »

In Germany, people respect the contribution that private enterprise makes and understand that companies have to make profits to survive.
Unions understand the need to work constructively with industry for the greater good of everyone.

Enterprise is of course easier to start up there as there is no minimum wage.

then again, not many German companies would be run with anything like the level of debt 'enjoyed' by Ineos.

Its a oddly Anglo-American attitude that unions, and by implication the workers are scum who should be kept at arms length.

CLAPTON

Kennyboy66 wrote: »

then again, not many German companies would be run with anything like the level of debt 'enjoyed' by Ineos.

Its a oddly Anglo-American attitude that unions, and by implication the workers are scum who should be kept at arms length.

Maybe because we had unions like the NUM, Car unions at British Leyland etc, the Steel workers Union, the Dockers Union, who were largely communist who like Milliband senior wanted violent revolution and weren't actually interested in the worker's interests atall

sadly none exist now, not because the unions were crushed but because the companies were destroyed.

CLAPTON

grizzly1911 wrote: »

In general terms , not specific to this case, what is the chance of another Maxwell scenario these days?

basically zero