Monday, April 21, 2008

Panic at the Pumps

Well, I've just wasted half an hour of my life buying petrol. It's always a bit of a panicky process for me - I usually wait until I'm running on the whiff of an oily rag before I even think of going to a petrol station and I'm sure I've come close to not making it on occasion.

However, tonight was different. The queue was horrific, people were bad tempered, and to cap it all, our lovely profiteering petrol station had put its prices up.

Minister for Everything John Swinney has helpfully brought in an independent expert to try to avert the strike - although it might have been a bit more helpful if he'd done it a couple of weeks ago.

Ineos, the owners of Grangemouth have done themselves no favours with all their scaremongering about the weeks' long effect of any industrial action - they have just succeeded in creating a self fulfilling prophecy out of the media frenzy. They would have done better to concentrate their efforts on the negotiating table rather than the media war. Mind you, why should they walk away from an excuse to make money.

I'm no great fan of trade unions - yes, in principle, they're great, but I often think that they're macho monoliths who don't really do much for their members. However, the actions of Ineos are making me quite sympathetic towards them.

2 comments:

Amy said...

Hiya, saw this quoted in SoS at the weekend, well done!

Unknown said...

I didn't see that - which bit was quoted?

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