Self-Inflicted Wounds

The decision that of the Unite convener - Stephen Deans - to resign his job on the eve of a disciplinary hearing will lead most reasonable people to draw the conclusion that he was 'bang to rights' - and unable to offer a plausible explanation for his behaviour.

Yet instead of being in any way apologetic for putting Grangemouth workers through the mill in recent weeks - for calling a strike under what were clearly false pretences - both Unite and Mr Deans have come out fighting.     

Incredibly, Stephen Deans claims that he has been treated as the "enemy within" by site operator Ineos - an emotive phrase that harks back to the 1985/85 miners' strike and one presumably designed to elicit maximum sympathy for Mr Deans as some kind of martyr - instead of the architect of his own downfall.

But with the benefit of hindsight it now seems plain that the ridiculous strike called by Unite over Mr Deans alleged unfair treatment - was really intended to force management to halt  the investigation into his behaviour.

The allegation being that Mr Deans was devoting much of his time and energy on political work for the Scottish Labour Party - instead of doing what he was paid for by Ineos which was to represent the interests of the workforce as a local union convener on full-time paid release.  

Apparently, Mr Deans told Unite members that his situation would only serve as a distraction at the plant - although a more common sense interpretation of his predicament is that Deans decided to jump before he was pushed. 

In a further statement, Unite said: 

"The final straw was the decision of Ineos to leak details of private emails to the Sunday Times in an effort to further smear his reputation."

Now I don't know who leaked what to whom, but the union's comments side-step the real issues which were:

1 Why did Mr Deans not defend himself allegations that he abused his time-off arrangements with Ineos - by doing work for the Scottish Labour Party during working time?

2 Why did Unite call a strike about Mr Deans 'unfair treatment' at the hands of management - when he (Deans) and Unite must have known that this allegation was untrue.   

If you ask me what is likely to happen now, I predict that Unite will give Stephen Deans a job - working for and being paid directly by the union in some capacity. 

Although not at Grangemouth obviously where Mr Deans will be persona non grata - and where the previous practice of having full-time union conveners has been scrapped as part of the plant's rescue plan.