steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
Everything's a fuckin adventure these days
British Steel on the verge of collapse
- Thread starter steeplejack
- Start date
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
People sacked by e-mail. People with 30 years experience turning up unsuspectingly for work only to be escorted offsite minutes later by security. Others placed on gardening leave for a week pending a decision about their future.
Horrid.
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
It is horrible. Absolutely horrible, but 'unsuspectingly'? I don't think there was anything unsuspecting or unexpected about it. When the company you work for us losing £1M a day, the first thing anyone should expect is not having a job in the morning.
I'm not trying to make light of it but it was far from unexpected.
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
Hope scratching your semantic itch was worth it, Saul.
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
There's nothing semantic about it. You can't say people weren't expecting it, when it's exactly what they were expecting
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
There's nothing semantic about it. You can't say people weren't expecting it, when it's exactly what they were expecting
It’s not that simple. The redundancy scheme - which I don’t know the details of, but perhaps steeplejack does - only impacts on 10% of the total workforce.
So, workers might have feared that they would be selected but that’s very different to ‘expecting it’. Given the job losses, and families now worried sick, it’s a very strange argument for you to adopt by the way.
A better question is how we’ve ended up here. A union negotiated scheme should allow everyone to know where they stand, voluntary release should have been the first step and then an objective selection criteria. This sounds like a massive fuck up and the joint union side should have ensured was avoided. Finding out you’ve lost your job via email is shite
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
It's absolutely shite, but as far as I'm aware, the whole thing hinged on whether or not the French gave the go ahead for a Chinese company to take over and continue to supply their rail tracks. It was apparently one of only a few profitable sides of British steel. Now I don't know the outcome but given the current Brexit situation, I wouldn't be holding my breath.
Please don't interpret my response as anything other than a despondent reply, based on nothing more than abject despair.
nogojones
spelling is overrated
But the union was Community so did you really believe they'd be of any use?
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
I don’t doubt Community will have played their usual parasitical role. But as I understand it they were only one of the unions who met Jingye and signed up to their restructuring plan which included the planned redundancies announces yesterday. Unite and GMB were definitely also at the meetings and involved in negotiating the detail.
It’s inconceivable, to me, how this deal would not involve VR, an objective selection criteria, 121’s for each worker in advance of any decisions and a planned comms approach.
I don’t expect the unions, Community in particular, to fight job cuts (why change the habit of a lifetime) but the failure to even negotiate the process by which they’d be made is incredible. Even by their standards
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
1. 10% redundancies; 70 gone so far, more to follow. Up to 500 will be gone in the end.
2. Deal should be done by Monday at latest.
3. Fate of Hayange in France not settled and unlikely to be for dome time
4. Jingye can do as they please as old company completely insolvent and being kept alive artificially. No obligation to offer sane terms or conditions let alone a job.
5. One worker yesterday asked “why me?” and answer there came none. No obvious selection criteria or rationale for dismissal offered. Just go. Hence my use of the word “unexpectedly”.
2. Deal should be done by Monday at latest.
3. Fate of Hayange in France not settled and unlikely to be for dome time
4. Jingye can do as they please as old company completely insolvent and being kept alive artificially. No obligation to offer sane terms or conditions let alone a job.
5. One worker yesterday asked “why me?” and answer there came none. No obvious selection criteria or rationale for dismissal offered. Just go. Hence my use of the word “unexpectedly”.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Thanks for that explanation. But it still leaves a simple question for the unions involved -
On point 4 you note that this is effectively a dismissal and re-engagement situation. But, and it is a big but, Community have already come out publicly and said worker should accept the new contract.
Community have either finally signed up to ‘a job at any price’ as their new employment model or more likely agreed the new contract as part of the talks. This being the case you’d also have expected them to have agreed the process for the 10% of job cuts also. It’s inconceivable that the talks only touched on the new contract.
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
My suspicion is that they have cut a "job at any price" deal and this wobbling-jowled outrage in the press is largely synthetic, and has also been agreed in advance. Either that or it was agreed in advance, and they expected the actual announcements to be handled more sensitively.
Jingye are altering the terms of employment, in outline "doing away with overly generous holiday entitlements" and replacing with new (no doubt cheaper) schemes for obligations such as paternity leave. People across the company are being fired (some said it was just blast furnace staff that would be chopped).
Seemingly a sour mood in town; feelings that a genuine welcome for new employers has been betrayed; reactions across the spectrum from dismay at the awful way this has been done to ugly comments along the lines of "the chinks are buying up all the houses now". More broadly a workforce that's busted a gut to keep the company going during the period of special administration to be cast aside without a backward glance, at the moment of sale.
Jingye are altering the terms of employment, in outline "doing away with overly generous holiday entitlements" and replacing with new (no doubt cheaper) schemes for obligations such as paternity leave. People across the company are being fired (some said it was just blast furnace staff that would be chopped).
Seemingly a sour mood in town; feelings that a genuine welcome for new employers has been betrayed; reactions across the spectrum from dismay at the awful way this has been done to ugly comments along the lines of "the chinks are buying up all the houses now". More broadly a workforce that's busted a gut to keep the company going during the period of special administration to be cast aside without a backward glance, at the moment of sale.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
I think you have to conclude that this is what has happened. It’s inconceivable that the talks with Jingye would have been limited to the new contracts. As I say, I think local stewards need to be asking some searching questions of their negotiators about how this has happened.
The watered down contract was inevitable to be sure, and the price to be paid for failing to mount an effective public ownership campaign in my view.
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
a tweet suggests the followinng breakdown of current workforce:
3,200 to be offered contracts
400 redundancies as of March 9
100 workers transfer to Barrett Steel (they have purchased British Steel distribution centres in a separate deal)
numbers "in the hundreds" retired or found new work during SA period
3,200 to be offered contracts
400 redundancies as of March 9
100 workers transfer to Barrett Steel (they have purchased British Steel distribution centres in a separate deal)
numbers "in the hundreds" retired or found new work during SA period
This all really informative stuff -- thanks for keeping us up to speed with this depressing story.
Any thoughts ( steeplejack ?) on how likely it is that the British Steel developments might have any knock-on effect on those who work for Tata? My (CAMRA) friend is an engineer at Port Talbot and he's not been optimistic recently ...
Any thoughts ( steeplejack ?) on how likely it is that the British Steel developments might have any knock-on effect on those who work for Tata? My (CAMRA) friend is an engineer at Port Talbot and he's not been optimistic recently ...
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
This all really informative stuff -- thanks for keeping us up to speed with this depressing story.
Any thoughts ( steeplejack ?) on how likely it is that the British Steel developments might have any knock-on effect on those who work for Tata? My (CAMRA) friend is an engineer at Port Talbot and he's not been optimistic recently ...
Smokeandsteam would be a better steer on this. He was schooling us all earlier in the thread about the EU-driven attempts to have Port Talbot shut down, as part of a gigantic rationalistion of steel production in the EU. Not sure if Brexit will have stopped this or where Britain is in relation to the plan.
I hope some future can be found for Port Talbot as that town is even more of a steel mono-culture than Scunthorpe.
Cheers -- I will check upthread later.
Contradictory stuff was coming from Port Talbot of late.
Not so long ago Tata were publicly talking of investing to replace (or refurbish?) two of the blast furnaces. I can't source this right now
and the suggested timescale was ultra vague, but mixed messages seem to be the order of the day for now. My mate thinks downscaling and lots of redundancies is more likely than all-out closure, but there could be all sorts of other information or rumours about for all I know.I'll keep an eye on it all, because like you, the last thing I want is for Port Talbot to go down the tubes.
Knowing a couple of (unionised!) people who work there will help for updates -- I'm solidly supportive of them and all other workers there anyway.
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
Oh, for fucks sake:
www.theguardian.com
Jingye says Scunthorpe / British Steel ‘unviable’ without ‘massive cash injection’
British Steel owner reportedly asking for urgent financial help from government
Jingye Group understood to have told ministers that its blast furnaces are unviable without huge cash injection
Jingye says Scunthorpe / British Steel ‘unviable’ without ‘massive cash injection’
weltweit
Well-Known Member
Redcar steel plant: 'Biggest demolition' of its kind in 75 years
The Basic Oxygen Steelmaking (BOS) Plant was brought down using 1.6 tonnes of explosives.
www.bbc.co.uk
Fred Dibna would have tutted at how much explosive they used.
Dogsauce
I’ve got Skol but I’m not a Scholar
If Kwartang tanks the pound a bit more their products will get a lot cheaper on the international market. Incompetency to the rescue. Imported fuel and ore however…Oh, for fucks sake:
British Steel owner reportedly asking for urgent financial help from government
Jingye Group understood to have told ministers that its blast furnaces are unviable without huge cash injection
Jingye says Scunthorpe / British Steel ‘unviable’ without ‘massive cash injection’
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
I wonder if these neoliberal types will ever figure out that without actual value-adding industries to sponge off, the hedge funds' ability to conjure money from thin air will mysteriously disappear.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
They don't care where the value-adding industries are; neoliberals ultimately identify with/bend the knee to the increasingly globalised market. Relationships between people, place and culture - i.e. where and and how actual people live their lives - are of interest in so far as they offer opportunities for capital to reproduce, or stand in the way of such opportunities. True it's a thoroughly topsy turvy world, but it is their world.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
Maybe a political change will come soon so that Scunthorpe and Port Talbot can be nationalised without compensation.
About time some of the ‘risk’ was re-introduced for investors. This is a critical infrastructure industry.
Then again, I’m more likely to be called up to play cricket for England in Pakistan this winter.
About time some of the ‘risk’ was re-introduced for investors. This is a critical infrastructure industry.
Then again, I’m more likely to be called up to play cricket for England in Pakistan this winter.
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
No because they believe the froth of the financial system which has grown barnacle like around the frameworks a capitalist (or even a socialist, probably) economy to enable effective distribution of capital and labour could exist without the real 'economic' activity that underpins it.
because most of them are over educated public school knobs obvs.
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
And not just Port Talbot.
Llanelli Tata steel relies on about 1000 tons of hot rolled steel coil from Port Talbot every day. Tata Llanelli is one of the biggest employers in Carmarthenshire. Llanelli is a depressingly poor town that could not even manage 'depressingly poor' without the steel works.
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
800 of 4,000-strong workforce facing redundancy (local news)
Up to 1200 jobs may be axed by British Steel (S Wales Guardian)
British Steel considering cutting up to 1,200 jobs at Scunthorpe (Guardian UK)
Jeremy Hunt is offering £300 million to Jingye (Scunthorpe owners) & Tata at Port Talbot to keep the doors open but not clear what impact Jingye's redundancy threat will have. Steel industry facing problems of need to modernise / make "net zero" steel production and soaring energy costs coupled with over-capacity in steel markets. The bill for net zero transition several billion pounds so Hunt's gesture like throwing a teaspoon of water on a roaring binfire.
The obvious solution- nationalising without compensation and seeing off predatory venture capitalists and asset-strippers in order to protect a vital piece of the UK's industrial infrastructure- is, of course, for ideological reasons, the one thing that cannot be contemplated.
The pathetic "Community" Union's response has been to raise one cheek and issue a hissing fart to the tune of "worrying but we can't comment on rumours".
Up to 1200 jobs may be axed by British Steel (S Wales Guardian)
British Steel considering cutting up to 1,200 jobs at Scunthorpe (Guardian UK)
Jeremy Hunt is offering £300 million to Jingye (Scunthorpe owners) & Tata at Port Talbot to keep the doors open but not clear what impact Jingye's redundancy threat will have. Steel industry facing problems of need to modernise / make "net zero" steel production and soaring energy costs coupled with over-capacity in steel markets. The bill for net zero transition several billion pounds so Hunt's gesture like throwing a teaspoon of water on a roaring binfire.
The obvious solution- nationalising without compensation and seeing off predatory venture capitalists and asset-strippers in order to protect a vital piece of the UK's industrial infrastructure- is, of course, for ideological reasons, the one thing that cannot be contemplated.
The pathetic "Community" Union's response has been to raise one cheek and issue a hissing fart to the tune of "worrying but we can't comment on rumours".
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