Feckin Idiot Motorists in Inverness..........

[CaleyD]

Half the garages in the City are running out of fuel tonight.....not because of any shortage, but through panic buying.

:crazy07:

[SMEE]

Its the same with food at xmas. Ppl go daft and buy 2 weeks shopping wen the shops are shut 1 maybe 2 days. TWATS!!

[little al]

Doesn't affect me. I am on a ban :008:

[Heilandee]

No just Inverness D,was doon the road at the w/e and folk were queing up at 8 AM Sunday morning in Glenrothes.

[Charles Bannerman]

folk were queing up at 8 AM Sunday morning in Glenrothes.

Folk in Glenrothes up at 8 o'clock on a Sunday morning?! It must be bad!

[Alex MacLeod]

Its happening all over even though there's enough stored fuel at Grangemouth to keep the country going for about a month.

[Action Man]

From the BBC Scotland website:

"Highland Liberal Democrat MP, Danny Alexander, has sought reassurances from the industry that fuel Scotland's big cities will get priority over fuel deliveries and leave rural areas in short supply."

:024:

[SMEE]

Should that not read

"Highland Liberal Democrat MP, Danny Alexander, has sought reassurances from the industry that fuel Scotland's big cities will NOT get priority over fuel deliveries and leave rural areas in short supply." :024:

[CaleyD]

Some people are just plain crazy.  My parents delivery Chinese Takeaway and one of the other delivery drivers decided to pack up and go home early last night because he didn't want to waste fuel....even though he would be giving up a nights wages  :015:

[Action Man]

Should that not read

"Highland Liberal Democrat MP, Danny Alexander, has sought reassurances from the industry that fuel Scotland's big cities will NOT get priority over fuel deliveries and leave rural areas in short supply." :024:

You would have thought so wouldn't you. Might just be a typo, bit worrying if not.

[Jay_7]

Tesco and I beleive Morrisons are in the same boat, do not get a drip from Grangemouth.  However they will feel the strain when the majority find this out and bleed these garages dry...

[Glen Mhor]

On the way up to Edinburgh by bus yesterday I noticed one or two petrol stations shut down with no supplies. Diesel seems to be in really short supply all over the place.

[Alex MacLeod]

Tesco and I beleive Morrisons are in the same boat, do not get a drip from Grangemouth.  However they will feel the strain when the majority find this out and bleed these garages dry...

Sorry but unless they are delivering from Kent then all stations in Scotland and the north of England are supplied from fuel refined in Grangemouth.

The problem is not a fuel shortage but a difficulty in supplying stations as quick as the idiots run them dry.

[SMEE]

I blame the press. Its a fact we consume wen in a state of fear, and here is the proof!

[Johnboy]

Why is no one addressing the root of this problem which is that the fatcats who run the Ineos company, are very anxious to see improved bonus payments, golden handshakes, etc for executives, management, and have decided the best way to achieve this is to tear up all existing pension plan agreements that the union negotiated for its members years ago.

A pension entitlement is merely deferred salary. To reduce pension entitlement is to steal money from people for the years of service they have given. Future generations also should have the opportunity to retire comfortably after a lifetime of work - not just in the petrochemical industry but in all jobs. Gordon Brown boasts that the UK has created lots of employment but most of the jobs are little better than minimum wage modern day slavery. Disgraceful behavior from the management.

[CaleyD]

It's not nearly as simple as that Johnboy, and whilst I don't think people should be forced to give up or negotiate on pension benefits they are a very costly thing to provide in the current economic climate.

The law/regulations make it very difficult for companies to remove existing pension rights so many of the arguments you see are with regard to the pension benefits being offered to new employees....and these are often poor due to the cost of maintaining the existing pension rights.

We've seen all the reports of problems with pensions underfunding which have been arising for the last 10 or so years.  Most of these are in connection with Guaranteed Final Salary Schemes which took a huge wallop in the 80's and struggled to recover properly generating problems 15 to 20 years later....in effect what was happening was that new contributions were covering the deficit with very little going into the pot for the next generation of people retiring.

Companies have since had to make up that shortfall from annual profits so don't have the resources (allocated) to continue offering the benefit.

Factor in the cost of people now living longer and you can soon start to see that non-contributory pension schemes soon become a very very expensive benefit for employers to be providing these days.

If a person works for 30 years in a company that provides a 60ths Final Salary Scheme, that company then have to find an amount equivalent to half that persons salary during their entire retirement, and possibly a sum beyond that as many schemes included provision for a surviving spouse.

If your in any doubt as to the cost of running these schemes then you just have to look at some simple figures......

- There's approximately 1350 Grangemouth Employees.

- Shutting the plant down for those two days will cost the company in excess of ?200 Million.

It's not as straight forward as assuming that's what it costs to fund current pension plans for each person, but it's safe enough to assume that it must have been looking to have cost the company a good bit more than ?200 Million to continue providing the benefits as is or they would have simply given in to the strike threats.

What's the alternative?  Well it's all a case of when people want their money to be honest.  If companies are expected to continue funding Final Salary Schemes then people have to be willing to take a hit on current salary in order that companies can spread the cost, or they have to be willing to give up other benefits.  It's either that or the companies pass on the costs to the customer and with fuel prices already high then (in this case) it's not certain that the market would be willing to accept those costs.

This isn't about companies being greedy and trying to rip off employees, it's simply an economic fact that the schemes the employees are trying to expect have become such a huge financial burden that they are now risking the jobs of the very people they are aimed at providing for.

You get nothing for nothing in this world and whilst I agree that the workers have every right to try and fight for what they can get, people (including them) have to realise that if they want/get it then it will come at a cost.  Perhaps not immediately, but it will come and it may end up impacting not only on themselves, but on people who may not even realise it...the consumer.

[Johnboy]

Fair enough, but consider....

Normally, when there is a big trade dispute, the trade unions are blamed for unreasonable militancy. In this dispute, Unite, the main union involved, has behaved with moderation. The dispute is about pensions. The Ineos management want to introduce new, but less generous, terms for new recruits. 

Pensions are politically sensitive issues, particularly for Gordon Brown. His first action as Chancellor, as long ago as 1997, was to take some ?5 billion a year of tax from the pension funds. That stealth tax led to the old final-salary system being widely discarded as too expensive. Mr Brown caused the British pensions crisis that lies behind the Grangemouth dispute. He is more to blame than Unite or Ineos.

The Ineos case is also unpopular because Ineos is secretive and chairman Mr Radcliffe has become extremely rich, a multibillionaire. When Ineos is described as a ?private equity? business, the senior managers protest that it is only an ordinary petrochemical company. Yet it has been financed by borrowing on a private-equity scale: it has made private-equity-type sales as well as acquisitions; it is privately owned. It also resembles other private-equity companies in its failure to disclose to the public information that would be legally required from public companies.

All the big oil companies, and particularly BP, understand that they are in the politics business as well as the oil business. Oil is always political. Ineos is also in the politics business, whether it likes it or not. With this strike at Grangemouth, oil and gas prices are likely to rise; oil and gas may become unavailable over wide areas of Britain. In this case, the whole of Scotland and much of the North of England are liable to be affected to some extent. Such a crisis of supply affects millions; this is politics for the unions; it is politics for Ineos; it is politics for the Government.

No doubt Mr Radcliffe would prefer to reconstruct his acquisitions in privacy, but Ineos has become too big for that; his decisions now have an impact on a broader community. The privacy of private-equity companies is undoubtedly a commercial advantage, so long as they are small, and their decisions have only a limited impact on the general public. However, the success of Ineos means that it now has to face public accountability; for them, the age of privacy is passed.

Mr Radcliffe has come under the spotlight, whether he likes it or not; Unite will be put under the spotlight as well; but the real damage may be done to Mr Brown.

Earlier trade union disputes led to the defeat of Wilson in 1970, of Heath in 1974 and of Callaghan in 1979. From any government's point of view, a big strike that affects the broad public is a serious political threat. Apart from the actual damage done by such strikes, they show up the weakness of government. Prime ministers who cannot stop strikes are bound to look impotent.

Weakness and indecision have already sullied Mr Brown's early image. He was indecisive over the decision to call or not to call an early election, and over the credit crisis and Northern Rock. He has been forced to surrender to Frank Field over the 10p tax band. He is more responsible than anyone else for the destruction of the final-salary system, which led to the Grangemouth strike. No wonder he has gained an image of indecision, damaging to himself and his party.

:024:

[tm4tj]

Johnboy, I don't like it when you post more than one line and don't use the :024: smiley.

[Johnboy]

Apologies Tm4tj....

Sorted it out now... :022:

[Jay_7]

Tesco and I beleive Morrisons are in the same boat, do not get a drip from Grangemouth.  However they will feel the strain when the majority find this out and bleed these garages dry...

Sorry but unless they are delivering from Kent then all stations in Scotland and the north of England are supplied from fuel refined in Grangemouth.

The problem is not a fuel shortage but a difficulty in supplying stations as quick as the idiots run them dry.

AFAIK, Tescos and Morrisons fuel is imported by boat.  I can only go on what I've been told.

[Heilandee]

I did originally empathise with the strikers believing it was management trying to change exsisting pension schemes, but no,it seems that it is only new employees who will be affected. This surely is a whole different ball game,and as with any position of employment so long as terms and conditions are known at the outset,the candidate makes his decision to accept or reject a position based on this. If the situation escalates and fuel becomes scarce,i and many other will become unable to earn a living and being self employed unable to contribute towards our own pension schemes.

[Johnboy]

I did originally empathise with the strikers believing it was management trying to change exsisting pension schemes, but no,it seems that it is only new employees who will be affected. This surely is a whole different ball game,and as with any position of employment so long as terms and conditions are known at the outset,the candidate makes his decision to accept or reject a position based on this. If the situation escalates and fuel becomes scarce,i and many other will become unable to earn a living and being self employed unable to contribute towards our own pension schemes.

My understanding is that Imeos have announced, not negotiated, that as from August 1st, new employees will not be offered a final-salary pension scheme...

They are also saying that existing staff pension arrangements are no longer sustainable (like Marius's wages!) and these will have to changed. It is the imposition of changes on the employees - present and future - that has caused this dipute.

[CaleyD]

Johnboy, you should get on to The Times....someone there has printed an article identical to yours.  Thieving barstewards.

[Johnboy]

Johnboy, you should get on to The Times....someone there has printed an article identical to yours.  Thieving barstewards.

Not quite CD.... they only picked out certain parts of my article...  :018:

[Alex MacLeod]

Unfortunately, there's a lot of bandying about with figures and spin in the press.

This 2 day strike will not cost Ineos ?200 million as is being quoted. The losses in offshore production are valued at ?50 million a day for the four days that the Forties Pipeline System was shutdown. Not actual losses, cos the oil is still in the ground, but losses of production.

Ineos bought the Grangemouth complex and its employees from BP. Part of the deal was that employees terms and conditions would be maintained for two years. A substantial proportion of the BP pension scheme was also transferred to Ineos. Ineos is the third biggest petrochemical company in the world and can easily afford to keep on the final salary scheme but chooses not to. Shell, BP etc all have final salary schemes and no plans to change them. Indeed BP's scheme is so rich the company isn't paying into it.

It is not just new starts that are being affected by this. Existing employees, who have had the luxury of a free pension scheme for many years are now being asked to contribute 6% of their salary.

Ineos, like all the other oil majors, will announce excessive profits whilst eroding the terms and conditions of its employee's.