SIR – In his letter (T&A, November 14) re the Grangemouth refinery dispute, Mike Pollard concludes that the union leader picked ‘the wrong fight at the wrong time’.

Yet what was the Unite union supposed to do with the billionaire owner of the firm issuing demands that the workers accept a financial reduction in the value of their wages and future pensions, plus give away their trade union rights to strike for the next three years?

In the past, unions have sometimes been vilified in the media for supposedly ‘acting irresponsibly’. But in this case it was the boss who petulantly closed down the business because he didn’t want to honour agreements already made, this threatening the Scottish economy and livings of workers and their families.

It is also particularly galling to discover now, reported in the press, that there remains controversy surrounding the accuracy of the balance sheets produced by the management indicating company losses, to justify their demands.

David Hornsby, West View Avenue, Wrose