Tata threatens to close Port Talbot steel plant due to strikes
Tata has threatened to close its Port Talbot steel plant next week due to Unite strikes.
The Indian conglomerate has announced it will close the last blast furnace at its south Wales site three months earlier than planned as union members prepare for a strike.
Tata was expected to close one of the facilities at the end of this month and the second in September as the company continues with its net-zero emissions plans.
The country has received £500 million in government support to switch to electric arc furnaces to reduce carbon emissions.
Nearly 3,000 steelworkers face redundancy as a result of the proposals, but Tata claimed the alternative was closure of the site, resulting in the loss of 8,000 jobs. The plan has been criticized by politicians, unions and industry experts, who said it puts the future of the British steel industry at risk.
Threat: Tata said it will close the last blast furnace at the South Wales site three months earlier than planned
Unite leader Sharon Graham said yesterday that Tata’s statement was the latest “in a long line of threats that will not deter us”.
And the Labour Party has called on Tata to wait for a possible Keir Starmer-led government after the July 4 election before holding more crisis talks.
A Tata spokesman said the company “is regrettably forced to take legal action to challenge the validity of the Unite ballot”. Tata said it had “no choice” but to close the kilns early if the strike meant they could no longer be operated safely.
The spokesperson added: ‘This is not a decision we would take lightly, and we recognise it would prove extremely costly and disruptive across the supply chain, but the safety of people on or around our sites will always take priority over everything else.’
About 1,500 Tata workers are preparing for all-out indefinite strike action from July 8 over plans to cut 2,800 jobs and close Port Talbot’s blast furnaces. It is the first time in more than forty years that steelworkers in Britain have gone on strike.
The move comes after Unite members in Port Talbot began working to govern last week, introducing an overtime ban.
Unite’s Graham said: ‘Tata issuing a statement to close or pause its blast furnaces three months earlier than intended is the latest in a long line of threats, none of which will deter us. The Unite campaign is not about selling jobs, it is about securing the long-term future of steelmaking in this country for thousands of workers in Port Talbot and South Wales.
“We call on the real decision makers in Mumbai to address this dispute, sit down, negotiate and realize that the investment secured will be good for the company and its employees.”
Simon Cran-McGreehin, head of analysis at the research group Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said: ‘This news will of course be hugely worrying for workers at the plant, and it didn’t have to be. A planned transition to future-proof technologies, including hydrogen, could have saved many more jobs.’