Trade union Unite has threatened legal action against Grangemouth chemicals plant owner Ineos after the firm said it intends to end collective bargaining agreements.
Unite’s senior Scottish official Pat Rafferty said the announcement in April would prevent the union from representing workers at the industrial complex.
Mr Rafferty said last night he will lodge an appeal to block the move with the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), the government body which oversees the regulation of industrial relations.
Mr Rafferty said: “We intend to protect our legal right to ensure our members are represented by their union. My sincere hope is that Ineos rescind the notice to derecognise Unite and avoid an unnecessary legal action.”
In a letter to staff last month, Ineos said: “We will defend your right to be represented by a union, although other options such as through a works council can be envisaged, but not by Unite.”
Unite currently represents a majority of staff at the plant which employs around 1,300 workers at the refinery and a further 400 people in the petrochemical and infrastructure divisions.
The fresh dispute comes three-and-a-half years after industrial action led to a threat by Ineos to close the plant for good.
The news was broken to the workforce in October 2013. Ineos said a decision on whether to restart the refinery would be taken once the "threat of strike action" had been removed.
The company later reversed its decision after workers agreed to a survival plan which included a three-year pay freeze.
Speaking in April, Unite’s assistant general secretary Howard Beckett described the move to end collective bargaining agreements at Grangemouth as “an incredibly foolish attempt to undermine the democratic rights of workers”.
He added: “After three years without a pay rise there is bound to be difficult negotiations, but Unite's demand for a 3.25% rise is more than reasonable and our intention remains to achieve a negotiated agreement.”
Ineos has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel