As I blogged yesterday Unite had at unwilling to let the arbitration service ACAS get involved in their dispute with Ineos the owners of the Grangemouth oil refinery over their decision to end their final salary pension scheme.
However, with plants at the site already shutting down in preparation for the strike action Unite have agreed to talks in London with the employers at Acas's offices.
What is alarming however is the lack of response from the Cyber-Nats on this issue. Ideas of Civilation mentions it as did my fellow Lib Dems Iain Dale and Caron Lindsay. But nothing from the Nat or Labour leaning bloggers in Scotland. Obviously the Nats want to keep bad news firmly hidden under the carpet even if business is involved.
Stephen,
ReplyDeletePart of me thinks the lack of SNP-Labour responses is because this isn't really an obvious political issue.
There's an extent to which a lot of the SNP-Labour battle in the Scottish Parliament is something of a phoney war. Neither side is really that far apart from the other in ideological terms (save from the constitution).
That just leads (at times) to point-scoring and seeking to undermine the other. I suppose you could argue it was ever thus in politics though.
It's different for the SNP too because they are now in government. I imagine that before last May the response from those SNP supporters that blogged would have been to blame the government and demand action, which they can't do now. They still deserve praise for trying to intervene though.