3,000 jobs under threat as blast furnaces set to close
Crunch talks over electricity switch
UNIONS were last night locked in crisis talks to save 3,000 jobs as steel giant Tata prepares to shut blast furnaces at its biggest plant.
The Indian company is understood to have rejected plans aimed at saving jobs in Port Talbot in South Wales in order to switch to electric arc systems.
Government ministers agreed last year to plough £500million into the plant to help fund a transition to cleaner steel production.
But they have been accused of overseeing “managed decline”.
Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, GMB trade union national officer, said: “Large-scale job losses would be a crushing blow to Port
Talbot and UK manufacturing in general.
“It doesn’t have to be this way – unions provided a realistic, costed alternative that would rule out all compulsory redundancies.
“This plan appears to have fallen on deaf ears and now steelworkers and their families will suffer.”
The alternative plan from the community and GMB would mean just one blast furnace closes and is replaced with a smaller electric arc furnace. The remaining blast furnace would be kept until the end of its life cycle in 2032.
The plan also recommended the construction of a plant for the produc-tion of virgin steel in the electric furnace. Without a Direct Iron Reduction plant, electric arc furnaces can only make steel from scrap metal not iron ore.
Union sources said their plan would mean the UK retained its strategically important capability to produce virgin steel. They also said it would avoid immediate job losses, with losses achieved through natural attrition.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “As yet, Tata are still playing games with people’s livelihoods. More managed decline can only help the UK’s competitors, producers in other countries.”
Stephen Kinnock, Labour MP for Aberavon, home of the Port Talbot steelworks, said: “Global demand for steel is actually growing, but by pursuing a narrow electric arc furnace-only model, Tata Steel will be unable to seize the commercial opportunities of the future.”
Sources said Tata had accepted a union plea to keep the hot strip mill open over a transition period.
Tata Steel said: “We are committed to meaningful consultation.” A Government spokeswoman said: “Our commitment to the steel sector is clear.”
The Mirror has been campaigning to Save Our Steel since 2015.
It doesn’t have to be this way – unions have provided an alternative to save jobs
CHARLOTTE BRUMPTON-CHILDS OF THE GMB UNION
FOR more than 100 years Port Talbot has been the steel capital of Britain.
That proud history is now set to come to an end with the loss of 3,000 jobs.
Closure will be devastating for the local community and the wider Welsh economy.
It did not have to be. If owners Tata had put together a proper transition plan as it moves towards a greener future then the plant and the jobs would have been saved.
It is not too late for the Government to intervene to broker a deal that protects workers and maintains production.
This is a test of how much the Tories care about British manufacturing and British jobs.