Striking For Our Pensions

by Richie Venton, SSP national workplace organiser

"Nobody wants to be on strike, but we're left with no choice."
That was a common refrain from Grangemouth workers as they picketed the gates of the huge oil refinery during their 48-hour strike in defence of pension rights - their deferred wages, and those of future workers - at the hugely profitable enterprise.
They proudly held aloft UNITE union red flags on the picket lines, and at Sunday morning's march round the site with hundreds of family members and local supporters.
This strike by 1,200 workers has generated more acreage in press coverage than any industrial dispute for years. And most of it has been hostile to the workers, with myths peddled about them earning £40,000 and £60,000; paying nothing into their pension scheme; and striking despite having their own final salary pension scheme guaranteed.
Even the broadsheets, like the Herald, adopted the tone of quiet assassins, accusing the workforce and UNITE of being to blame for the loss of up to £50m a day to the UK's economy, demanding the workforce accept radical changes to their pensions, seeking to isolate them by portraying them as privileged compared to the rest of the country.
In fact it is multi-billionaire owner of INEOS, Jim Ratcliffe, who is holding the country to ransom.
He bought over BP's petrochemical sector, including Grangemeouth, in 2005, for just under £5billion. This occurred alongside his rapid-fire acquisition of numerous chemical plants, incurring heavy debts, which he aims to pay off by making his factories 'leaner and meaner' - which means firing workers, cutting wages and conditions.
This former venture capitalist has had a bad week; not only did his 'hired hands' at Grangemouth dare to defy his brutal assault on their incomes, but he fell from 10th to a 'mere' 25th in the Sunday Times Rich List! But before you weep for Jim - he has a personal fortune of £3.3billion, a private jet, lives in a mansion - and has been almost single-handedly responsible for provoking the biggest industrial showdown in years.
The workers' union UNITE has negotiated with INEOS for 8 months, after the new owners declared their intention of ripping up the Final Salary Pension Scheme inherited from BP. INEOS cynically lied to the media about workers' earnings; about the viability of the pension scheme's funding levels; talked up the impact of a strike to try and vilify and alienate the workforce form the general public. They threw a final incendiary device into ACAS-sponsored talks with UNITE by issuing a letter to workers' homes telling them the new pension scheme would go ahead regardless from 1st August 2008.
No wonder the workers voted by 97 per cent to strike.
As Alec, one of the pickets told me, "This is about our pension scheme, but also about people. My son works here as well, and he's just had a child we would like to think had a future in Grangemouth. So we are forced to strike to stop INEOS scrapping the Final Salary Scheme for new workers as of 1st August. And when the company say they have withdrawn the threat to existing staff, that's just not true. It would just mean the scheme being withdrawn from us a in a few years time instead of right now."
I made the point to him that some of the press has attacked the strikers for taking action in defence of future workers, when that principled defence of the future should be praised, not pilloried.
He replied, "Absolutely. And if the scheme was in debt we could sort of understand it being cut back, but it's hugely profitable. And Ratcliffe is losing more from this strike than it would cost to maintain our pensions."
In fact it is estimated the savings on pensions would only amount to £1.5m - not the £720m that INEOS says is required in investment and which they have repeatedly linked to pension savings in the business-friendly media.
That points to bigger stakes for this gluttonous capitalist. As another picket told me, "Even if every one of the 1,200 of us keeled over dead tomorrow and our dependents got all the payouts they are entitled to, the scheme would still be in surplus by £36-40million."
INEOS is the biggest private company in the UK in terms of sales. It is the world's 3rd-biggest oil refiner. The Grangemouuth refinery alone makes about £3m profit a day. Jim Ratcliffe owns 75 per cent of the company - which seems to have no shareholders and little accountability. Ratcliffe has shown no interest whatsoever in meeting face-to-face with UNITE to resolve the dispute. He makes Lord Lucan look like a shameless exhibitionist by comparison with is failure to appear in a crisis.
Ratcliffe obviously wants to amass even more wealth by making the pension scheme 'leaner and meaner'. He may also want to teach the union a lesson, weaken it, and then gradually whittle away wages in future. Not that we found any £60,000 processing operators of press legend! The starting salary is about £21,000. And contrary to the oft-repeated myth that these workers don't pay into their pension, they do!
As UNITE has explained, "Other companies in the Oil and Petrochemical sector do have a specific amount deducted from their salary. Ineos workers do not and the size of their salary reflects that. That is, there is a 'salary surrender' operating. Some other oil company workers, eg Shell, have both higher salaries and better pension arrangements."
A pointer to why the INEOS bosses are so intransigent is the fact Final Salary Pension Schemes are very rare nowadays in the private sector. In fact the same media which has vilified the Grangemeouth strikers have in recent years condemned public sector workers for daring to take action in defence of such schemes - on the grounds that it would make them 'privileged' compared to private sector workers.
And boiled down to its essence, this is a blatant wage cut by any other name. Grangemeouth workers stand to lose £10,000 a year through the attacks on their pension scheme.
There is no justification for INEOS dismantling the pension scheme. It is pure capitalist greed, with the wider aim of weakening union resistance to other future attacks on conditions, using the device of a two-tier workforce to force through changes that nobody would accept if they were openly called wage cuts.
The workforce has done everything possible to avert a crisis. All the strikers are doing shifts on safety duties inside the plant during the strike to prevent any damage. As one picket told me, "We thought this might get us some friendly mentions in the press, but so far not a mention."
This dispute raises broader issues too. Why should one monstrously rich man own and control the country's oil refinery? Why should petrol companies have the power to rip off motorists by jacking up prices during the dispute - when stockpiles of supplies exist for at least 70 days with no need to panic? Why should multi-national oil companies amass vast wealth from North Sea oil and gas production - whilst 650,000 Scottish households suffer fuel poverty, and 2,000 Scottish pensioners die of hypothermia every winter because they cannot afford to eat AND heat?
The Scottish Socialist Party is proud to stand alongside Grangemouth workers in defence of their deferred wages and those of future workers - but we also feel strongly this highlights the case for public ownership and democratic control of the entire industry.