Around 1,500 Tata Steel workers based in Port Talbot and Llanwern in Wales will begin an ‘all-out’ indefinite strike action from July 8 over the company’s plans to cut 2,800 jobs and close its blast furnaces, trade union Unite said on Friday.
It is the first time in over 40 years that steel workers in the UK have taken strike action, Unite said in its statement.
A Tata Steel spokesperson said, “We are extremely disappointed by Unite’s unilateral decision to call strike action.”
He said, “Our existing steelmaking assets are near the end of their life, are operationally unstable and causing unsustainable losses of 1 million pounds a day. This is why preparations to close the blast furnaces and associated plants in Port Talbot are unchanged.”
The company also said, if the safety and stability of operations are put at risk by this action, it will be forced to accelerate closure plans.
He added, “After extensive negotiations with our unions, we substantially improved our support offering for affected employees – the most generous package in our history.
Rather than taking strike action, we would have expected Unite to put our improved offer to its members, as previously accepted by all unions, including Unite.”
Unite said that the escalation in industrial action comes after the workers, who are members of Unite, the UK’s leading union, began working to rule and an overtime ban on June 17.
Unite is one of the three unions at Tata Steel’s Port Talbot plant.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Tata’s workers are not just fighting for their jobs — they are fighting for the future of their communities and the future of steel in Wales.”
“The strikes will go on until Tata halts its disastrous plans. Unite is backing Tata’s workers to the hilt in their historic battle to save the Welsh steel industry and give it the bright future it deserves,” Graham said.
The decision comes shortly after the Labour party called for Tata Steel to halt its plans and wait until the general election to engage in talks with the government. The general election in the UK is scheduled for July 4.
Unite pointed out that Labour has pledged 3 billion pounds for UK steel if elected next month, a commitment secured by the trade union.
Labour has also made emergency talks with Tata a priority if it wins the election, it mentioned in its statement.
On June 11, following media reports on the Labour party’s stance, Tata Steel expressed concern on policy differences between the UK government and the Opposition on its transformation plan.
In a statement, the company had said it was apprehensive reading UK media reports suggesting that the 1.25 billion pounds investment, the largest in many decades in British steelmaking, may be put in peril due to policy differences between the Conservatives and Labour parties.
The 1.25 billion pounds investment includes a grant commitment of 500 million pounds from the UK government. Tata Steel will be investing 750 million pounds. The investment is for transition from an emission-intensive blast furnace process to low-carbon steelmaking through the electric arc furnace (EAF) route, a move expected to impact 2,800 jobs.
Tata Steel, in its statement on June 11, had reiterated that it will continue with the announced closure of the heavy-end assets and restructuring programme at Port Talbot in the coming months.
Ramping down of heavy-end assets has already started. The decommissioning of blast furnace number 5 is scheduled for the end of June and blast furnace number 4 by the end of September.
The coke ovens, critical facility for primary steelmaking, were closed in March 2024 as operations became “infeasible and unsafe,” according to the company.
First Published: Jun 21 2024 | 9:24 PM IST