Steelworkers in Community and GMB unions in Wales are awaiting the results of a vote on whether to accept a settlement with Tata Steel. Unite the Union representatives decided that the terms were not good enough at that point to be put to the vote.
Up to 2,800 direct-employed jobs will be slashed, mainly from the Port Talbot plant, with thousands of contractors, supply workers and local jobs being thrown onto the scrapheap. Instead of the last two blast furnaces, steel will be produced through recycling old scrap in an electric arc furnace.
But as Tata management has shown, it cannot be trusted even to deliver this. Socialist Party members will continue our support and solidarity to fight for every job.
However, primary steel production is ending, cynically confirmed even before negotiations had concluded, when the ‘MV Trinity Island’ cargo ship berthed into the deep-water harbour on 7 September to unload the last ever shipment of 44,000 tonnes of coke, which will be used in blast furnace 4 before its decommissioning later in September. Gallingly, Tata even produced a video to mark this event.
Tata Steel executives have been intransigent from the outset that their proposals to shut down the ‘heavy end’ of the plant and close down the last two blast furnaces were non-negotiable.
Tata management is justifying this on the basis of a ‘green transition’. The same dishonest game of claiming that this is the cost of transitioning to more environmentally friendly production is being used by Ineos, which has just announced the closure of the oil refinery at Grangemouth. But this is utter hypocrisy from profit-hungry employers who have consciously run down both operations over a long period, and will effectively insource primary production at cheaper rates from abroad.
Nationalisation
Ineos owner billionaire Jim Ratcliffe brutally threatened to close Grangemouth in 2013 in order to drive through attacks on workers’ pensions, and Tata management wanted to start the Port Talbot steelworks closure in 2016, but was pushed back by the pressure of workers and the local community. The call for nationalisation won big support then.
Unfortunately, without such a demand now to strengthen united militant industrial action by all the steel unions, inevitably it has become increasingly apparent to many steelworkers over the past several months that any so-called negotiations with this brutal multinational corporation would not centre around retaining the remaining blast furnace 4, saving all the jobs and putting in place the investment required for a green transition, despite Unite maintaining this position throughout talks.
There were divisions between Community and GMB on one side, who enthusiastically supported the ‘Syndex’ plan of accepting job losses, and Unite on the other, whose alternative ‘Workers Plan for Steel in Port Talbot’ rejected the need for any steelworkers to lose their jobs.
The historic acceptance of ‘concession bargaining’ in which the steel unions, particularly the largest union, Community, have agreed huge job losses in an attempt to retain threatened terms and conditions, has seen the workforce decrease at the Port Talbot plant from almost 20,000 under the nationalised British Steel corporation down to around 4,000 in Tata – before the mass redundancies were proposed!
Unite the Union was absolutely correct in its energetic campaign to mobilise its members and the wider community around its workers’ plan “to expand capacity so that we can defend all jobs and actually grow employment in the steel industry”. However, for such a campaign to gain support and to build confidence among steelworkers that a victory was possible, two vital ingredients were necessary to combat this ruthless employer.
Firstly, a united workforce, with mass, local community backing. And secondly, an industrial and political strategy with a clear programme of industrial action able to win widespread trade union support across Wales and the UK.
A united union campaign was possible, despite decades of inter-union rivalry, particularly as community support was overwhelming, considering the impact the loss of thousands of jobs would have in Port Talbot and the surrounding areas.
There was significant support in the community from the start of the dispute for the Socialist Party’s clear demand that the only realistic solution to stop the proposed jobs slaughter, was to bring Tata back into public ownership: to nationalise Tata under democratic workers’ control and management, with any compensation based on proven need, meaning Tata’s bosses would get nothing!
Our demand for “nationalisation not devastation” became increasingly relevant as it became abundantly clear that Tata was determined to shut down the furnaces, ending primary steel production and turning Port Talbot into a ghost town.
Tata executives contemptuously dismissed pleas from trade union leaders, Welsh government and Westminster ministers, first Tory and now Starmer’s Labour, to put in place the billions of pounds of investment needed for a green transition which could preserve primary steelmaking, as well as saving and expanding jobs, as Unite’s ‘workers’ plan’ proposed.
When negotiations stalled and Tata walked away from talks, the strategy of the unions was not to prepare for serious industrial action to nationalise Tata but to call a strike ballot of its members in order to force Tata back to the negotiating table.
Increasingly, steelworkers were becoming confused, frustrated and demoralised. The fact that Unite stood alone in being serious about industrial action, rather than a combined united stand by all three unions, had an impact. Workers inevitably saw the unions as being split and so had less confidence in action going forward.
In the middle of the dispute, at the Wales Trades Union Congress in May, instead of preparing to mobilise the whole trade union movement for solidarity action and support, the steel unions moved an ‘emergency motion’ that was to just demand “the transparency of the remit of the transition board and to map the impact on the supply chain”!
The motion from Swansea Trades Council, moved by a Socialist Party member, put forward the alternative way forward: for the nationalisation of Tata, with solidarity strike action and mass picketing. This was rejected as being too ‘premature’, and was overwhelmingly rejected with the exception of some of the more militant unions and trades councils.
Unite the Union poured resources, both physical and financial, into protests, demos, and local community activity but unbelievably the word ‘nationalisation’ was not mentioned once by of any of the trade union leaders, throughout this struggle.
Sowing illusions that Tata could be pressurised to drop some of its proposals, alongside limited government intervention, instead of building consistent and ongoing support for nationalisation was a critical mistake, especially during the general election campaign. There should have been a loud demand that a Starmer government immediately takes Tata back into public ownership.
A political strategy, coupled with the preparations for industrial action, could have transformed the mood of an increasingly sceptical and disillusioned workforce.
Of course, it is the duty and responsibility of any trade union leadership to fight to save as many jobs as possible and to secure the best-possible redundancy terms and conditions when a battle has been engaged, fought but defeated.
Industrial action
The fact is that, apart from Unite’s overtime ban and work to rule, no industrial action was taken during this dispute, despite the ‘yes’ strike vote from all the unions.
Ultimately, despite being the minority union to Community, Unite stood alone in calling indefinite strike action, which was due to start four days after the general election. It did play a role in forcing Tata back to the negotiating table but even then the union leadership didn’t demand that the incoming Labour government nationalise Tata.
The statement from the government includes “a commitment by Tata to consider future investments”. But despite the fanfare from Labour, the only confirmed detail relates to the electric arc furnace. These promises by Tata will be met with scepticism by the remaining workers because of government inaction, and regrettably an incorrect union approach.
Therefore, it will now be imperative that the full details of those future investments are put to the workforce and it will need workers’ pressure to ensure that these promises are kept. There will now be a key second stage of talks to discuss this investment. The Unite Convenor has stated in a press release that: “Our union will hold their feet to the fire to make sure this happens”.
Embarking on a major industrial struggle against a brutal and determined employer like Tata, entails the union leaders convincing the membership of a strategy for success and an action programme to deliver.
This struggle, and others to come, is an object lesson on how unions and workers in these industries deal with ‘green transition’. We counterpose a ‘workers’ transition’ as the only possible way to win over workers, facing mass redundancies and closures.
Unite has launched the ‘no ban without a plan’ campaign in response to government plans not to issue new licences for North Sea oil and gas drilling. We demand that any green transition to alternative production should be on the basis of guaranteeing workers’ jobs, pay and pensions. But this can only be done by taking these companies, such as in the energy, utility and steel industries in to socialist public ownership.
The steel unions’ failure to call for nationalisation throughout the Tata dispute and the failure to put that political demand onto the Labour governments in the Senedd and Westminster will be a lesson that needs to be learnt by a new generation of militant trade unionists urgently at British Steel in Scunthorpe, Ineos in Grangemouth in Scotland, Harland and Wolff in Belfast, and in the inevitable future struggles.
