Alec Thraves, Swansea Socialist Party and Swansea Trades Council
As negotiations between Tata, the steel unions and the new Labour government continue, Tata has started the process of ‘seeking expressions of interest’ from those steelworkers considering whether to accept the reconfirmed enhanced voluntary redundancy package.
In a blatant attempt to impact on negotiations, and to pressurise and bribe workers to sell steel jobs, Tata has set a response deadline of 7 August.
Tata senior management was forced to the negotiating table by the threatened all-out strike action that Unite had called and was due to start on 8 July (on the back of an overtime ban and work-to-rule), days after Keir Starmer’s Labour government was elected. This action has been suspended to allow ongoing talks.
Workers’ control
Jonathan Reynolds, Labour’s Business Secretary, Jo Stevens, the new Welsh Secretary, and the steel union leaders must finally put on the table the widely supported demand for the nationalisation of Tata, under democratic workers’ control and management, with any compensation based only on proven need – meaning nothing for the billionaire Tata bosses.
If, as Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has reported, Jonathan Reynolds ‘understands the need to secure the future of steelmaking in Britain’, then the only guarantee of that being achieved is by bringing steel fully back into public ownership.
A nationalised steel industry would be able to plan, control and implement Unite’s strategy for a ‘Workers’ Plan for Steel in Port Talbot’.
Unlike the Community- and GMB-supported ‘Syndex plan’, which would have resulted in large, immediate and long-term job losses, Unite’s Workers’ Plan is a “strategy for the future that would defend existing jobs and create new ones too”.
Central to this strategy is retaining blast furnace four until at least 2032, while investment in a green transition is developed and primary steelmaking secured.
However, Tata has made it brutally clear, yet again, that it has no intention of keeping blast furnace four firing, nor investing the billions of pounds needed for this transition.
The coke ovens and blast furnace five have already been decommissioned and Tata remains intransigent that blast furnace four will be shut down in September, no matter what subsidy or investment promises will be on offer from a Labour government.
A red line must be drawn
If blast furnace four is shut down, then up to 2,000 direct jobs in Port Talbot will disappear, along with several thousand contractor, supply-chain and local business jobs!
Unite’s strategy correctly states that “at the heart of the Workers’ Plan is a basic principle: workers must not pay for the transition”.
All the steel unions have voted for industrial action to defend their industry, save their jobs and secure the future of the local communities. However, only Unite has moved to take action. It’s essential that members of Community and GMB demand that their unions join with Unite in preparing for the future action that would be necessary if Tata continues with its plans.
If Unite’s Workers’ Plan of “expanding capacity so that we can defend all jobs and actually grow employment in the steel industry” is to be achieved, and steelworkers’ confidence boosted, then nationalisation must urgently be shouted from the rooftops by union representatives, demanding immediate action by Labour ministers.
Tata’s strategy of trying to buy out the steel jobs of the present workforce and thus denying well-paid, skilled work for future generations, must be vigorously opposed!
Any attempt by Tata to shut the remaining blast furnace four would have to be met by all steel unions using their strike mandates, taking immediate industrial action, including refusing to decommission the furnace. Such action, backed by solidarity and support from the rest of the trade union movement, would be needed to force the Starmer government to nationalise Tata Steel.
A victory and future for steel can be won!
