Manchester United co-owners INEOS – who are headed up by bigwig Sir Jim Ratcliffe – have made a major announcement admitting they didn’t have another choice
INEOS have made a major announcement
Manchester United co-owner INEOS has announced it will axe 20 per cent of staff at its Acetyls facility in Hull as a “direct result of sky-high energy costs and anti-competitive trade practices”.
Breaking the news to workers this week, a total of 60 positions are to be eliminated. INEOS has pointed the finger at “dirt-cheap carbon-heavy imports from China”, manufactured using coal power.
The firm revealed that whilst these Chinese goods have been banned from the United States, no such trade barriers exist in the UK or Europe.
David Brooks, CEO of Ineos Acetyls, commented: “This is a very difficult time for everyone at the Hull facility. We have a leading-edge, efficient and well-invested site and the team here is highly skilled, professional, and dedicated.”, reports the Manchester Evening News.
“Making the decision to cut 60 roles was not taken lightly. We have explored every possible alternative but in the face of sustained pressure from energy costs, combined with unfairly low-cost imports into the UK and Europe, we’ve been left with no other choice.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s INEOS have confirmed job cuts at its Acetyls plant in Hull(Image: Getty Images)
“Our priority now is to support those affected and protect the long-term future of the site.”
He continued: “This is a textbook case of the UK and Europe sleepwalking into deindustrialisation. INEOS has invested heavily at Hull to cut CO2, yet we’re being undercut by China and the US while left wide open by a complete absence of tariff protection.
“If governments don’t act now on energy, carbon and trade, we will keep losing factories, skills and jobs. And once these plants shut, they never come back.”
Sir Jim Ratcliffe has received backlash for his job cuts at Manchester United(Image: Getty Images)
Sir Jim Ratcliffe has faced a barrage of criticism for the job losses at United. Earlier this year in February, the club confirmed that up to 200 staff members were facing the chop in the latest round of redundancies.
This followed the United boss’s decision to cut its workforce by nearly a quarter, resulting in 250 employees being given their marching orders.
Alongside the job cuts, it was reported that current staff members would no longer be treated to free hot meals, with fruit, soup and toast at Carrington being offered instead as a cost-saving measure.
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In response to the backlash against INEOS, Ratcliffe defended his actions in an interview with The Times. “This summer we will ‘buy’ Antony, Sancho, Casemiro, Martinez, Hojlund and Onana and they’re all about 17 million quid each,” he stated.
“Because that’s what is outstanding. If we buy nobody else we’re buying those players.
“But it will be a very profitable club. We believe that in three years’ time it will be the most profitable football club in the world. And it will be in a very, very different place. But we need to go through the change. Nobody likes change.
“The changes that we’ve made over this season, plus the ones that have been announced recently [more redundancies], will put us in a position to be able to do that,” he concluded.
“At INEOS we run a lean organisation. As my mother said, you look after the pennies, the pounds look after themselves. We can sound flippant about free lunches but if you give all these perks, first-class train fares, free taxis, it’s not coherent. It goes bust at Christmas.
“We’ve made some really tough decisions and now we’re seeing staff understanding what we’re trying to do. There’s a clear vision of what we’re trying to achieve.”