Nick Hart, West Midlands Socialist Party
After six weeks of strike action, Unite members at the ArcellorMittal steel coil plant in Willenhall in the Black Country are showing no signs of backing down!
We heard on the picket line about how management would sooner spend several thousand pounds sending out work to subcontractors and the company’s two other plants than settle a pay claim equal to just 5% of their profits in 2021.
This is despite the shop floor workforce there earning an average of only £11.24 an hour – at least £2 less than what many other similar metalworking jobs in the area pay. As one worker put it: “They can find £90,000 to do up the offices, they can pay the top brass who work in there a six-figure salary, but when we ask for our pay to be brought up to where it should be for the work we do, we get threatened with the factory closing and us losing our jobs”.
The campaign for a living pay increase continues, with further strike days planned into December if management carry on refusing to negotiate with the union.
