Redcar's Corus plant

[Dr Jon]

If you are a managing director, the finance of the company has to be a pretty vital part of your role.

Not saying MDs can't be engineers, or have been engineers.

The main / recurring complaint seemed to be that none of these money-juggling twats had any clue about engineering or technology, the potential rewards from tech innovations nor the scale of investment required.

... and why should they, when they could make easy £millions from Ponzi schemes and pushing dodgy mortgages on to folk who (obviously) couldn't afford them.

 

[weltweit]

Technology based companies are different from engineering companies for example, I agree, but they still have to make money from their developments. I would say that Siemens is a technology company. They make money from their technological knowhow and innovation.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

The economy in Teeside depends on two things, one of which is Corus, the other is the public sector, how the fuck the area will weather the mothballing and then the massive public sector funding cuts that are going to hit by April 2011 at the latest I don't know.

Yes Corus should be renationalised and recieve large scale investment to keep it open - but the tap going in makes that extremely unlikely now.

The government, unions, and various agencies and third sector organisations are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on retraining and advice and guidence for the Corus workforce for what? For what jobs?

The only even slightly positive thing I've heard about to come out of this is that Community the steel worker's union is actually making a massive effort to retain and continue to support it's redundant and unemployed members - taking unemployed members seriously is something the unions really need to work on, and they could show the way here.

 

[discokermit]

I once worked for a company where there was an engineer as managing director. The trouble was he thought he was still an engineer not a managing director. Companies should be run by managing directors!

they're both twats. companies should be run by the workers.

 

[weltweit]

they're both twats. companies should be run by the workers.

There is nothing to stop workers running companies.

Someone would likely still need to be the managing director.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I don't really buy this, it may have been true at the start but now to suggest that we make higher quality because we are British and they are Indian just does not make such sense. I am sure given the same equipment, the same manning and suchlike, Indian plants can produce what we produce.

It's not about "them" being Indian and "us" being British, you twat, it's about investing hundreds of millions of pounds in facilities to do stuff like cryogenically treat steel and make exotic alloys, and them not having done so as yet.

 

[FreddyB]

Yep. We had the best steel works in the world. We've gone from producing the lowest carbon content finished product steel plate available anywhere in the world to turning out cheap crap. It makes no sense at all.

 

[weltweit]

It's not about "them" being Indian and "us" being British, you twat, it's about investing hundreds of millions of pounds in facilities to do stuff like cryogenically treat steel and make exotic alloys, and them not having done so as yet.

So there is no real reason, back to my point, why the Indians can't do it.

 

[ViolentPanda]

So there is no real reason, back to my point, why the Indians can't do it.

Except that they don't yet have the facilities.

 

[weltweit]

Except that they don't yet have the facilities.

That hardly makes the situation for Corus Redcar any better does it, unique facility (if you are to be believed) yet no demand for the product. No wonder the Indians haven't invested in the facility if there is no demand for the product!

 

[Dan U]

I don't really buy this, it may have been true at the start but now to suggest that we make higher quality because we are British and they are Indian just does not make such sense. I am sure given the same equipment, the same manning and suchlike, Indian plants can produce what we produce.

my Dad works for BP as a buyer and he can't buy a single component thats forged in Indian, Russian or Chinese steel works.

all to do with that big fire/explosion in the US apparently.

makes his life hard to say the least - and the closure of high quality, specialist mills even more baffling.

 

[ViolentPanda]

That hardly makes the situation for Corus Redcar any better does it, unique facility (if you are to be believed) yet no demand for the product. No wonder the Indians haven't invested in the facility if there is no demand for the product!

Are you being deliberately obtuse? I've already said once that it isn't about lack of demand, but lack of consistent demand.
Guess what? When the economy gets buttfucked, fewer satellites, submersibles and stealth weapons get built, demand for specialist metallurgy dips, production drops, and as I previously explained, costs do not.
That's why the furnace in question had no issues until a couple of years ago, when the advance order book started thinning.
That's the nature of specialist production.

 

[sihhi]

“Years ago we would have had a meeting if the tea was cold in the canteen. I have never even seen a mass meeting over the closure. Unions are more involved in running the welfare services. I wish they had gotten us all together and asked us what we actually felt and what we wanted to do. It’s the other way around—they are telling us what we are doing.”

From

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/coru-f23.shtml

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Don't fight this with economics - fight it with practical sense - attack the logic of private ownership and private investment decisions.

There's a massive slump and yet the social need remains - energy power stations renovation of bus garages, flood defence systems at breaking point, grandstands, bridges, steel for blades in the Vestas plant which could have been kept open etc etc.

Couldn't agree more with this. Economists are bourgeois snakeoil salespersons - professional liars practicing a pseudoscience in the service of capital. That vile harpy economist Ruth Lea was nailed on the Middlesbrough QT when she tried to explain to the plant workers and their communities that job losses were simply an economic reality they had to face up to now that capital can relocate wherever labour is most exploitable. They weren't taking that shit from her, nor should they.

As you say the critique of such closures should be linked to a wider analysis of the inhumane and ugly system that such closures are part of: global capitalism.

 

[weltweit]

The Corus Redcar Steel Plant has been bought by Taiwan's SSI

Redcar steel plant to reopen under SSI

London – Tata Steel UK Ltd has signed a definitive agreement to sell certain assets of Teesside Cast Products (TCP) to Sahaviriya Steel Industries UK Ltd (SSI), a subsidiary of Thailand’s largest steel producer. The deal, which values TCP at $469 million, is scheduled for completion by the end of March.
.....
“I am very encouraged that after all our efforts we have been able to reach this agreement, which is good news for the highly skilled and dedicated Teesside workforce,” said Karl-Ulrich Köhler, MD & CEO of Tata Steel in Europe.

http://www.theengineer.co.uk/channe...eel-plant-to-reopen-under-ssi/1007575.article

 

[weltweit]

sorry, that is Thailand not Taiwan :-/

 

[nightbreed]

I see manufacturing as important.

I think the same amount of British employees should be employed in manufacturing as they are in Germany.

Germany has not given up on manufacturing. But they have a different way of financing industry to the UK.



How does German industry finance manufacturing differently?

 

[weltweit]

How does German industry finance manufacturing differently?

I don't know precisely.

I was talking to a German businessman in January and I suggested there was some difference, he said only he thought that to start a GmbH you have already to have raised at least £30-40k of capital while in Britain you can start a limited company with zero investment.

I am sure there is more to it than that.

 

[weltweit]

Good News
Blast furnace at former Corus Redcar steel plant relit
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-17719747

Steelmaking has returned to Teesside - after the blast furnace at the former Corus plant in Redcar was relit.

New owner SSI has spent millions making ready the huge furnace, which was shut down when the plant was mothballed by previous owner Tata Steel in 2010.

Many of the 1,600 workforce who lost their jobs two years ago have been re-employed by Thai-based SSI.

 

[equationgirl]

I like this a lot, as an engineer. Whilst initially all steel slab produced will be exported to Thailand, as production is ramped up there are hopes the steel will be used in the UK.

 

[free spirit]

good news, albeit that all the profits will be going abroad instead of remaining in the UK

 

[equationgirl]

Someone said earlier in the thread that the steel would be used for the vestas turbine blades - as far as I know blades aren't made from steel as it's far too heavy, but it could be used for turbine towers (provided it's the right grade/type). Blades tend to be made from preimpregnated fibreglass and epoxy resin.

 

[weltweit]

good news, albeit that all the profits will be going abroad instead of remaining in the UK

Yes, that is true, I would prefer British owned industry, but the local area will benefit from the employment.

 

[equationgirl]

Yes, that is true, I would prefer British owned industry, but the local area will benefit from the employment.

In an area of traditionally high unemployment, I say that's a good thing. Yes the profit may be going abroad, but seeing as no British company put forward any investment plans for the plant, fair play to SSI for saving it.

 

[Belushi]

It's good to hear some positive manufacturing news for a change!

 

[weltweit]

In an area of traditionally high unemployment, I say that's a good thing. Yes the profit may be going abroad, but seeing as no British company put forward any investment plans for the plant, fair play to SSI for saving it.

Yes, I agree. I just think it is a shade sad that a foreign owned company sees profits from manufacturing in Britain where British investers do not.

You only have to look at the UK car industry, pretty much all foreign owned now and still producing loads of cars every year. British finance has something to answer for - or perhaps top management who just can't make it work here in Britain where others can.

 

[equationgirl]

Yes, I agree. I just think it is a shade sad that a foreign owned company sees profits from manufacturing in Britain where British investers do not.

You only have to look at the UK car industry, pretty much all foreign owned now and still producing loads of cars every year. British finance has something to answer for - or perhaps top management who just can't make it work here in Britain where others can.

Engineering isn't seen as some sort of second-rate career to finance by many abroad, as it is here.

 

[weltweit]

Engineering isn't seen as some sort of second-rate career to finance by many abroad, as it is here.

Hmm, I find that slightly depressing, but it is true.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Engineering isn't seen as some sort of second-rate career to finance by many abroad, as it is here.

I don't think I've ever knowingly met anyone in this country who has aspired to a career in finance, I've met countless people who would like to be engineers - unfortunately the way our economy is set up makes it pretty difficult.

 

[equationgirl]

I don't think I've ever knowingly met anyone in this country who has aspired to a career in finance, I've met countless people who would like to be engineers - unfortunately the way our economy is set up makes it pretty difficult.

I have, sadly - but they were arrogant wankers from the get go, a career in finance won't have changed that. I have also met a number of people who did accountancy & finance at uni and didn't aspire to a career in finance.