Steelworkers’ show of solidarity
STEELWORKERS gathered outside the Tata plant in Port Talbot in a show of solidarity on Friday.
The demonstration took place at the entrance of the steelworks site a week after the announcement that thousands of jobs would be lost under new plans by owners Tata.
The plans include the shutting down and dismantling of its two primary steel-making blast furnaces in 2024, to be replaced by an electric arc furnace that produces “green” steel. As a result 2,800 jobs could be axed. However, workers, unions and residents have said the proposals will essentially leave the town “doomed”, with wider repercussions for the South Wales economy.
Jeffrey Wellington, 52, is a shift electrician and said it is a place where many generations of families have worked, with the wages from steelmaking being the life-blood of the area.
He said: “I’ve been here coming up to 35 years, and to be honest it’s all
I’ve ever known, it’s all my dad’s ever known and it’s been here forever. Everybody knows someone who works within the steelworks or is associated with it so it’s huge for the town.
“My daughter’s partner works here, and they’ve just taken out a mortgage and have a baby so they are worried, very worried.
“I’m at the age where I don’t want to be travelling too far, but I just feel for the boys who are a lot younger than me really. This feeds the town.”
Shaun Hughes, 60, is a machinist from Port Talbot who has worked at the steelworks for 44 years.
He said: “This is going to have an absolutely massive impact on the town. They talk about 2,800 jobs but you can multiply that by five or six. It’s an impact not just on the local community but the whole South Wales corridor in general.
“Families are already panicking, since this was originally announced last November, and that has not changed one iota. I’ve got children of my own and they are already speaking of leaving the area or going abroad to work, which my wife and myself don’t want to see, but that’s the way this area is going.
“Think about the local valleys as well. The mining industry went in the 1980s, then you had Llanwern and Ebbw Vale shutting, so with that the only option for those people was to come to the steelworks. There was a little glimmer of light in the valleys, but that has been distinguished by shutting this because now there isn’t anywhere to go.”
Julie Morris, 60, is from Sandfields and has a number of family members with jobs at the works. She said: “It’s going to be a doomed town. If they take the steelworks away then there’ll be nothing left and that will correspond with everyone in the town. It’s going to diabolical. It’s going to affect the workers, the shops, everybody.
“My son has been here from school and is now 32. He’s got two children and a mortgage so I’m worried sick over him, the same as everybody else. This is a steel town, and for most of the youngsters that have gone in there that’s all they know.”
Carl Walters added: “If this goes it will be a ghost town around here because everything is linked to the steelworks. It’s a steel town at the end of the day and everything feeds off that. Nationally, it will be a huge blow as well because Britain needs to be able to produce steel, and if we can’t do that who knows what the ramifications could be.”
Meanwhile, the GMB union warned the UK will be left “woefully underprepared” for any potential conflict if steel blast furnaces are allowed to close.
The GMB has written to Defence
Secretary Grant Shapps saying that losing the ability to make steel from scratch will “significantly impact” the security of the country’s essential defence supply chains. The warning follows Tata’s decision to shut the blast furnaces at Port Talbot steelworks.
The GMB said there are also fears that British Steel plans to close its blast furnaces at Scunthorpe, leaving the UK with no way to make “virgin” steel.
Matt Roberts, GMB national officer, said: “We live in a turbulent global environment. Both Nato’s defence chief and Mr Shapps himself have warned that war in the next two decades is a possibility.
“Yet we are on the brink of losing our full ability to make our own steel, vital to our defence industry, not least in building warships. It’s utter folly.
“GMB is very clear, we must retain sovereign capability to make virgin steel.”