Gone Crockets
'Why build a mass of plants to make a mountain of goods no one wants to buy? ' says industry.
'It's time our major companies stopped preaching and started investing more in the United Kingdom,' retort the unions.
The industry they're fighting about is the chemical industry, dominated by multi-national giants like BP, Shell and ICI. At stake are thousands of millions of pounds of investment in some of the largest industrial projects ever proposed in Britain. Managements and unions are at loggerheads over how much Britain needs to invest to take advantage of new opportunities from the North Sea. Should we go all out for growth? Or would that be a dangerous gamble? How many ethylene crackers should Britain be building?
The row over how much we should be investing threatens to destroy the Government's much publicised Industrial Strategy. Judith Hann and Andrew Nell look at the background to the row and ask, are the comoanies selling Britain short', as the unions allege; or are the unions ' armchair strategists' who have 'gone crackers'?
Film editor ALAN CUMNER-PRICE Studio director JOHN GORMAN ProducerPhilipgedbzs
Producer PHILIP GEDDES