Port Talbot steelworkers braced for up to 3,000 job cuts
Tata Steel is expected to confirm as many as 3,000 job losses at its steelworks in Port Talbot on Wednesday, in what would be a devastating blow to the south Wales economy.
The board of Tata Steel is thought to be meeting in India, where it is headquartered, to make a final decision.
Workers are expected to be informed today at about lunchtime in the UK if the board follows through with a decision to close its blast furnaces.
Unions are braced for as many as 3,000 job losses at Britain’s biggest steelworks by March. That would be a bitter blow for a town that grew up around the steelworks but where prospects have declined as the company has fallen behind rivals. About 4,000 people are employed at Port Talbot.
The UK’s four blast furnaces are split between Tata’s site in Port Talbot and British Steel’s Scunthorpe, which is owned by the Chinese steel company Jingye. Both companies are under pressure to shift production away from methods that produce carbon dioxide. Port Talbot’s coal-powered two blast furnaces alone account for about 1.8% of UK emissions, contributing to the climate crisis.
Steel production is expected to continue on both sites but the companies are likely to install electric arc furnaces, a technology that uses electricity to melt scrap steel, removing the need for the blast furnaces that dominate the landscapes of both towns and which require thousands of employees to support them.
The UK government is planning to give Tata £500m in subsidies to help it upgrade but that will not cover the cost of installing a plant to make zero-emissions iron ore, which would preserve many more jobs. Tata is expected to inject about £725m to help the move to greener production methods.
The scale of the job cuts first emerged last month, and bosses at Tata – which employs 8,000 people across the UK – met union representatives in London to discuss the timeframe soon after.
Thousands of jobs are also thought to be at risk at Scunthorpe. British Steel is understood to be meeting trade unions next week to discuss its plan to decarbonise, which could put as many as 2,000 jobs at risk.
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Tata declined to comment directly on the plans for Port Talbot. A spokesperson said: “We hope to start formal consultation with our employee representatives shortly. In these discussions we will share more details about our proposals to transition to a decarbonised future for Tata Steel UK.
“We believe our £1.25bn proposal to transition to green steelmaking will secure the business for the longer term, bolster UK steel security and help develop a green ecosystem in the region.
“We are committed to meaningful information and consultation process with our trade union partners and will carefully consider any proposals put forward.”