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Tata Steel has pulled an announcement expected to confirm up to 3,000 job losses at its factory in Wales at the eleventh hour, prolonging uncertainty for the workforce at Britain’s biggest steelmaker.
Unions had earlier condemned the threat of steep job losses as part of restructuring plans expected to be announced after a board meeting by India-based Tata on Wednesday.
Officials told the Financial Times they had warned executives in the UK earlier in the day to expect a forceful reaction if Tata went ahead with the proposals.
“We told them we would use every tool available to us, including industrial action,” said Alun Davies, national officer for steel for the Community union.
The board meeting, however, ended with no official confirmation from the group.
Tata Steel UK, the British division, declined to comment after earlier noting that it hoped to “start formal consultation with our employee representatives shortly”.
Unions’ representatives said they were hopeful that Tata would consider a more gradual transition to less carbon intensive forms of steelmaking that would mitigate the impact on the workforce at the company’s main site in Port Talbot in Wales.
“We welcome there is no announcement and now expect to go into meaningful consultation with the company,” said Davies.
Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, GMB national officer, said the union was “working at pace with our experts . . . to analyse the company’s proposal and offer a viable and reasonable alternative that safeguards jobs and creates a genuinely ‘just’ transition”.
A reprieve, however, is not guaranteed. Tata executives have previously warned that its UK operations are losing more than £1mn a day and had gone as far as preparing details of the announcement.
Tata, whose Port Talbot site is the biggest single emitter of carbon dioxide in the UK, is under pressure to move to greener, less carbon-intensive forms of steelmaking.
The government has offered £500mn of taxpayer support as part of an agreement struck in September to help with the transition.
Ministers remain in talks with Britain’s second-largest steelmaker, Chinese-owned British Steel, which operates two blast furnaces at its site in Scunthorpe, over a separate funding package.
Unions fear up to 2,000 jobs are at risk at British Steel.
Tata Steel will invest about £750mn in its UK operations as part of the deal with the government. The company wants to close its two remaining blast furnaces as quickly as possible and build a less carbon-intensive electric arc furnace.
The two furnaces use electricity to melt recycled or scrap steel but are also less labour intensive. More than 2,800 jobs are at risk if Tata closes both furnaces, as well as their associated facilities such as the coke ovens.
Unions have said they want the company to restructure more gradually.
One option could be to build two smaller electric arc furnaces instead and close the blast furnaces once the others are in place, said one person familiar with the discussions.
A government aide said the agreement reached with Tata “secures the long-term future of steel in South Wales”. Without significant government support, “there was a risk of closing Port Talbot altogether”.
“All 8,000 Tata employees could have lost their jobs and an additional 12,500 in the supply chain,” said the aide.
One of the two blast furnaces was nearing the end of its safe operational life and the other was in its final years, added the aide.
Additional reporting: Chloe Cornish in Mumbai
