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Tata Steel, Britain’s biggest steel producer, has threatened to shut down its two blast furnaces in south Wales from as early as next week unless workers from the Unite union call off a strike.
The Indian-owned group operates two of Britain’s last remaining such facilities at Port Talbot and had been planning to close one of them by the end of June and the second by September.
Tata said on Thursday that due to the strike, which is set to start on July 8, it might have to begin the process of closing both from July 1 for safety reasons. They would then be permanently shut no later than July 7.
“If in the coming days, we cannot be certain that we are able to continue to safely and stably operate our assets through the period of strike action, we will not have any choice but to pause or stop heavy end operations (including both blast furnaces) on the Port Talbot site,” the company said.
Tata also said it had started legal action against Unite, challenging the validity of the strike ballot.
Unite said last week that about 1,500 workers would begin an indefinite strike from July 8. Members of the union in April voted for industrial action for the first time in 40 years in protest at Tata’s decision to shut both furnaces this year. The closures would result in up to 2,800 job losses and are part of a government-funded plan to shift to production using an electric arc furnace requiring fewer workers.
Rajesh Nair, chief executive of Tata Steel UK, told employees in a message on Thursday that closing the two furnaces early would have “major implications for our company”.
The company, he said, had proposed to Unite a set of outline exemptions “from the strike action to explore whether minimum levels of service and support could be maintained to enable ironmaking, steelmaking . . . to continue to operate safely”.
Sharon Graham, Unite general secretary, said Tata’s statement was the “latest in a long line of threats that won’t deter us”.
Unite, added Graham, had “secured serious investment from Labour to safeguard jobs” and called on Tata executives in India to “take hold of this dispute . . . [and] negotiate”.
Labour has promised to cut a better deal for the industry if it wins the general election on July 4.
The party has previously urged the company to reconsider a compromise plan backed by the Community and GMB unions to retain one of the blast furnaces, which has a lifespan that could run into the early 2030s, until the electric arc furnace is operational.
That plan would, however, cost more than the £500mn in taxpayer support offered by the Conservative government. It has also been rejected by Tata as neither feasible operationally nor affordable. Tata will invest £750mn to decarbonise its UK operations as part of the deal with the government.