Redcar Save Our Steel, Port Talbot and UK steelworks fight for their future

[brogdale]

Shit.
Tata set to announce sale of UK steel business

 

[brogdale]

unsurprisingly...towel thrown already

 

[binka]

Not 20 minutes ago chris ship was on itv news at 10 saying the government are giving serious consideration to nationalisation!

 

[brogdale]

Not 20 minutes ago chris ship was on itv news at 10 saying the government are giving serious consideration to nationalisation!

Like fuck they were.

 

[J Ed]

I doubt they even know how to say the word

 

[binka]

Like fuck they were.

I might have had a bottle of wine tonight but that is definitely what his 'insiders' were telling him. Cameron didn't want steel making to end on his watch. I said bollocks at the time. Repeated it at the end of the report too. Check itv1+1 if it exists

 

[brogdale]

I might have had a bottle of wine tonight but that is definitely what his 'insiders' were telling him. Cameron didn't want steel making to end on his watch. I said bollocks at the time. Releated it at the end of the report too. Check itv1+1 if it exists

Well, they may have to dissemble about this until June 23rd, but we all know what the outcome for UK steel will the day after.

 

[brogdale]

 

[binka]

I might have had a bottle of wine tonight but that is definitely what his 'insiders' were telling him. Cameron didn't want steel making to end on his watch. I said bollocks at the time. Repeated it at the end of the report too. Check itv1+1 if it exists

Port Talbot steelworks could be nationalised to save jobs

 

[agricola]

Like fuck they were.

I would be amazed if they weren't - even a department as wrong as the Treasury is would surely have noticed that the global steel "market" is awash with loss-making firms backed up by governments, that would cost a lot more than what Tata claim they are losing a week Europe-wide just to have the workforce at Port Talbot, Shotton and the other sites added on a semi-permanent basis to the welfare budget (as well as all the costs around site clearance, redevelopment and bribes to get new firms back in), and that at the end of the day it is a vital strategic industry of considerable historical importance that will cost billions to replace and whose demise will be laid entirely at their door.

There isn't even the argument that this is an inefficient business - for those sites to have survived this long, with so little state support and in the market they are in proves they are probably are the most efficient plants in the world.

 

[equationgirl]

I really hope they do nationalise these plants. There's more problems with Chinese steel components surfacing. they may be cheaper but the remedial work often required outweighs the cost savings.

 

[bendeus]

Port Talbot is an environmental monstrosity that, if I'm not mistaken, consumes more energy per year than domestic consumption in Cardiff. NPT has the second highest non-domestic consumption of any county in the UK. You can't drive past it without the stink or with the sheer inhuman scale of the place. I used to trick gullible English friends into thinking that the plume of steam above the hill on the horizon was the last active volcano in Wales. It's a part of the furniture on the M4 corridor. Unloved but somehow reassuring.

The thought of it going, though, with all those jobs and the heart ripped out of a community that doesn't fucking deserve it, the ancillary jobs (is it 1:5?) that would go with it, the families devastated and the fucking continuity of more than a century's worth of workers in a proud industry just discarded because Spamface and chums can't be arsed to protect another vital domestic industry just makes me want to weep. Wales has taken enough of this shite already, thanks

 

[William of Walworth]

Recognising a lot of what bendeus said above .... every time go past on the train or in the van the vastness of the place is still a bit of a shock. But without it. Port Talbot would be unemployment central, there's almost no other work in the town .

Where I work (in Swansea) has nothing to do with the steelworks but there are a few people around me who have family members and friends working there.

As you can imagine there's been some depressed/downhearted talk and I'm sure there'll be more of that over coming days

We also have a (CAMRA) friend who's an engineer there. Will try and find out what he knows/has heard when we next see him.

 

[stethoscope]

The crisis in British steel has been 40 years in the making

The crisis in the British steel industry is the result of four big trends in the economy over the past 40 years.

Issue number one has been the opening up of world markets in the process known as globalisation. In the decades immediately after the second world war, governments were able to protect their domestic steel industries through the use of high tariffs. Now they can’t.

Issue number two has been the rapid development of China as the world’s dominant manufacturing force. China has developed a massive steel industry and, until recently, the rapid growth of industry and the building of new infrastructure meant homegrown demand pretty much tallied with supply. But now it doesn’t because the Chinese economy has slowed and is becoming less biased towards manufacturing. China has excess capacity and is dumping its steel at below-market prices on the rest of the global economy.

Issue number three has been the European Union, which has been slow to respond to the threat posed by China and which has tough rules that make it hard (if not impossible) for countries to ride to the rescue of their steel industries. The view from Brussels is that there is little sense in propping up steel plants that are losing money when the world is awash with unwanted steel. Some countries, Italy for example, have found ways of getting round state aid rules by saying that financial support is designed to meet tougher EU environmental standards.

Issue number four has been UK government action, or rather the lack of it. Whitehall has not only saddled the UK steel industry with higher energy costs than those in Germany or France, it has been blocking proposals by some other EU countries to tackle Chinese dumping through higher tariffs.

These four issues have come together in a perfect storm that threatens to blow away what remains of the UK steel industry. This creates a big headache for the government, which will come under pressure from critics to do for the steel workers of Port Talbot what it did for the bankers of the City of London. With a referendum on EU membership coming up on 23 June, ministers will be wary of saying that they would like to do more but are being prevented by Brussels from doing so.

 

[brogdale]

Important point to remember...

Last month, the UK repelled efforts to scrap the “lesser duty rule”, allowing EU members to block cheaper steel imports from China.

Business secretary Sajid Javid argued that UK consumers and businesses would suffer if higher tariffs were imposed on Chinese steel - hurting UK growth, jobs and exports.

Unions, though, warned, that allowing Chinese firms to ‘dump’ steel at unfairly cheap prices risked killing off the British steelmaking sector.....

 

[newbie]

I really hope they do nationalise these plants. There's more problems with Chinese steel components surfacing. they may be cheaper but the remedial work often required outweighs the cost savings.

I've seen this said before but never understood why professional steel buyers here order and accept substandard components or materials. Surely steel used here all comes from wholesalers? Or is there a market for end users, construction firms or amateurs to order steel online and wait for Chinapost to deliver??

I guess we've all ordered from China- I'm currently waiting for a phone battery costing <£5 to arrive- but significant quantities of industrial steel?

 

[Tankus]

My mother's pension still comes from there....used to live in Aberavon

Fair play to Tata for the investment , shoreing up the pension black hole ...and having a crack at it ..

Far more people are taking out of that pot than putting in ......when my dad worked there .....had a workforce of just under 20,000....... I've seen the mills fairly close up at Margam and llanwern....everything covered in a thick layer of carbon soot......the speed of the strip, heat and noise you could feel....

Pretty sure it was the chemicals ( enamel and quality testing labs) that sent my father to his grave in his mid forties

Dantes vision made real

 

[JimW]

Did Tata get a load of sweetners/bribes when they bought it?

 

[DownwardDog]

Did Tata get a load of sweetners/bribes when they bought it?

No. They did pay way over the odds though. They planned the acquisition at 450p/share but eventually got forced north of 600p by a competitive bid from some Brazilian mob. Tata thought their cheap ore combined with Corus' access to EU markets would be a winning combination. That didn't really happen and they got lumbered with a mountain of debt and a shit business that loses about a million quid a day.

 

[Pickman's model]

so it's ttfn then

 

[stethoscope]

Government turns down Corbyn's demand to recall parliament.

Meanwhile, Javid has said…

“I’m deeply concerned about the situation. I think it’s absolutely clear that the UK steel industry is absolutely vital for the country and we will look at all viable options to keep steel making continuing in Port Talbot.

We are also very much alive to the human cost and we want to make sure no worker is left behind so where workers are affected that we are doing everything we possibly can to help them and their families.”

“At this stage, given the announcement from Tata has just come out, it’s important I think we talk to them properly and understand the exact situation and we look at all viable option.

I don’t think nationalisation is going to be the solution because I think everyone would want a long-term viable solution.

“And if you look around Europe and elsewhere I think nationalisation is rarely the answer, particularly if you take into account the big challenges the industry faces.”

I don't hold out much hope that the government (or the EU of course) will do shit here.

 

[Pickman's model]

I don't hold out much hope that the government (or the EU of course) will do shit here.

au contraire, stethoscope. the government will shit all over the affected communities.

 

[bendeus]

au contraire, stethoscope. the government will shit all over the affected communities.

Can't remember where I read it but weren't there concrete examples of redundant workers at Redcar being sanctioned by the Job Centre before even the six-month grace period had elapsed?

 

[Pickman's model]

Can't remember where I read it but weren't there concrete examples of redundant workers at Redcar being sanctioned by the Job Centre before even the six-month grace period had elapsed?

the shameful story: Axed steelworkers are already being threatened with benefit sanctions

 

[Buddy Bradley]

considerable historical importance

Why is this at all relevant to the current situation, though? It was mentioned by the union rep interviewed on the BBC news report this morning too. (Genuine question btw, not trolling.)

 

[stethoscope]

Not that I generally have much faith in the power of such petitions, but Corbyn appears to have started this one on the parliament site:
Petition: Call on David Cameron to act to protect our steel industry & recall Parliament

 

[Sprocket.]

I imagine the cabinet meeting when Osborne first mooted his idea for a northern powerhouse and the HST2 project being intertwined. Well we could build the trains here and use the rails made at Scunthorpe, the best rails in Europe allegedly. Nah lets outsource it all, the locals in those regions don't vote for us anyway.

 

[brogdale]

Gotta say, this is shrewd news management from Corbyn's team; get the man there whilst hamhead flies home from his all-inclusive in the Canaries.

 

[Sprocket.]

I see Corbyn as a shrewd man, no histrionics. Calm and collected.

I heard from a mate he has just finished at Stocksbridge, I will be in the process of getting him a job with us tomorrow if at all possible!
My best mate finished at Rotherham just before Christmas, 42 years he was there. He has not yet got used to the world outside steel making and probably never will!

 

[billy_bob]

the shameful story: Axed steelworkers are already being threatened with benefit sanctions

Maybe they should get on some sort of aquabikes and haul their lazy arses over to China...