Tag Archives: steel

Nationalisation Not Devastation! By Alec Thraves (Vice President, Swansea Socialist Party) Hundreds of steelworkers, trade unionists and Port Talbot residents marched through the town today to demand that Tata Steel steps back from its threat to sack 2,000 workers as it scales down the Tata plant at Port Talbot. Also today Newport workers marched to prevent job losses at the ...

By Alec Thraves Tata Steel bosses have declared the start of a legally obliged, 45-day formal consultation process which could culminate in the initial loss of 2,423 jobs across the UK, with 1,929 of those in Port Talbot, representing exactly half the workforce. Tata’s phoney war is over after TV Narendran, the global chief executive of Tata Steel and the ...

By Alec Thraves The proposal by the Tory Government and Tata Steel for the Port Talbot plant to shut down its two blast furnaces and replace them with ‘greener’ electric arc furnaces, requiring thousands less workers, have provoked anger and panic amongst the workforce, steel unions and the local community. Electric arc furnaces would basically turn the works into a ...

By Alec Thraves Swansea Socialist Party Once again, just before Xmas, the jobs of thousands of Tata UK steelworkers are threatened by the announcement that Tata Steel intends to make its UK business “self-sustaining” whilst at the same time off-loading its Netherlands based operations, making the UK, with approximately 8000 workers, its sole European steel operation. Around 4,000 of those ...

By Dave Reid On Saturday steelworkers from all over Britain joined hundreds of Orb workers and their families on an impressive march through Newport to demand that the Tata Orb steelworks in the city is saved. Tata has announced the closure of the Orb works and the loss of 380 jobs which has been making steel in Newport for over ...

Tata steelworkers have reluctantly accepted a ‘gun to the head’ pension deal which will end their final salary pension scheme and see it being replaced by an inferior defined contribution pension scheme. Union leaders, Tata management, MPs, AMs and the Welsh government all repeated endlessly to the workforce: accept this deal or see the plant close. Union leaders have attempted ...

How can a buyer be trusted with jobs and communities if they won’t take on workers’ pensions? By Rob Williams, former convenor Swansea Visteon It is becoming increasingly clear from the different bids to take over (or be virtually given) all or part of Tata Steel’s UK operations that none of the potential buyers won’t take on the £15 billion ...

By Alec Thraves According to some commentators, the multinational Tata Group has a reputation of being a paternalistic and caring corporation that takes into consideration the wellbeing of its workforce. Try telling that to the 4,000 steelworkers in Port Talbot and the tens of thousands across the rest of England, Wales and Scotland who either work for Tata Steel or ...