Tata Steel is set to announce 1,200 job cuts at its plants in Scunthorpe and Lanarkshire after a series of job cuts in UK steel sector.
Highlights:
- The steel price collapse filling the cheap Chinese imports.
- This job loss is from the part of the company that Tata failed to sell earlier this year.
- Tata has decided to cut back its UK operations.
- Scunthorpe plant, one of the UK’s largest steel plants that employs 4,000 people will lose most of its employees.
- Two mills in Lanarkshire will also be affected.
- Measures to stop Chinese steel damaging the future of a vital foundation industry in the UK
John Park, assistant general secretary of trade union Community, said: “The significance of this is that it could be the end of steel production in Scotland. Tata Steel have to be persuaded to mothball the site rather than close it and the Scottish government has to have a role in keeping the infrastructure secure and supporting short-time work until a future can be secured.”
Roy Rickhuss, general secretary of Community, said: “We have had a succession of ministers, and now the prime minister, saying that they will ‘raise’ the issue of Chinese steel dumping, which we know is impacting on the UK steel industry and the global steel price”.
“The prime minister needs to do more than ‘raise’ the issue. He needs to tell the Chinese premier what action he’s going to take to stop Chinese steel damaging the future of a vital foundation industry in the UK.”
Caparo administrators PwC said workers would be paid and briefed on developments, adding: “It is business as usual while the administrators’ review gets under way.”
