Redcar steelworks for the chop
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http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/talk-us-livelihoods-thousands-families-10110487
Quote:When you acquired the business in 2011 you inherited an incredibly committed, loyal and highly skilled workforce that is second to none.A workforce that has worked in partnership with you and which has continued to set new standards and break all production records in the face of extreme adversity.
In other words: they've worked themselves out of a job and produced more steel than the market can bear, and there are newer and better blast furnaces out there in the world.
Community is a 'partnership' union, but given the absolute whip hand of the bosses on this one, it's unsurprising. Closing Redcar furnace down won't destroy Teesside, steel isn't what it was. Still, the furnace has been restarted once, could it happen.
People will March, they'll shout, but there is no lever to use here[*]
[*]I suppose a political threat to expropriate the plant could force the issue, but I suspect that would be the government taking the debts and the clean up costs off private industry as well. Don't have much hope.
At least there is some sort of organising going on:http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13780962.Save_Our_Steel__Emergency_rally_in_Redcar_today/
Quote:SSI steel workers, their families and friends will hold an emergency rally in Redcar today to call on the Prime Minister to save the local steel industry.Supporters of the Save Our Steel campaign will gather in the Majuba Road Car Park, Redcar, from 6.45pm this evening.http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/business/business-news/ssi-workers-set-paid-after-10126712
Quote:The Government has reached an agreement which will provide cash to pay SSI workers tomorrow, the Gazette understands.It is believed HMRC has released around £4m by bringing forward tax payments following talks with the Redcar firm’s Thai parent company.The money will allow SSI to meet its monthly wage bill, which is due to be paid to workers tomorrow.It must be nice being a capitalist, and getting the state to pay your workers (obviously, that's profits robbed from other capitalists, but I'm not going to begrudge the workers who need that money). Although I'm hearing supply chain firms have been laying off workers without pay.As Community note, the state will have to bear the cost of redundancies if SSI are fundamentally broke (and then also the costs of clean-up).Also, its worth noting this is probably an effect of the Chinese slow down, and the knock on fall in commodities prices. Worldwide problems need worldwide solutions, not government protection.
We are often criticised for our lack of coverage or attention on such matters as these.I await your article for October's Standard to prove our critics wrong, YMS.
Bugger.Quick back of a fag packet maths: half a million on Teesside, gives a working population of about150,000 (roughly a third of the total) 1,700 jobs to go, immediately, with supply chain and knock on jobs pretty certain. That's 1.13% of the workforce going in one blow.
http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/redcar-canary-coal/4281
Quote:But beyond the local crisis, Redcar could be – yet again – the canary in the coalmine for a global problem. For what 2008-9 told us is: every time there’s a major credit event, the steelworks on Teesside shuts.There are other canaries dropping off their perches as I write. Glencore, the controversial mining and commodities trading company, lost a quarter of its value on stock exchanges overnight. Like all mining companies it is exposed to the sudden slowdown of China and other emerging markets – but it is an outlier in terms of the amount of money it has borrowed.Quote:Calls are to be made for a Government inquiry into claims that SSI failed to make pension contributions for months – but has still taken workers’ payments.Of course, there is a fund, and the state will cover the short-fall, but still.Robbing bastards.
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