A planned strike at the Port Talbot steelworks has been suspended after the Unite union said new investment was proposed.
Unite is suspending its industrial actionsaid, following news on Thursday that Indian conglomerate owner Tata would, in response, close the website early than initially announced.
Negotiations over the weekend produced a “significant development” in the form of an agreement by Tata to discuss future investment and not just layoffs, the union said.
The closure date is now July 7, one day before the previously planned strike and about two months before the originally announced September deadline for closing the last blast furnace where steel is produced.
Around 2,800 jobs will be lost – 2,500 next year and a further 300 in three years – despite a £500m taxpayer cash injection to support the site’s transition to cheaper, greener steel production to reduce emissions.
The first steel blast furnace was due to close at the end of June in an effort to reduce carbon emissions in what is the UK’s biggest source of CO2.
Previous fossil fuel-fired blast furnaces are being replaced by a single electric arc furnace.
Union response
It was in protest against the loss of jobs and the effect on the local community that Unite members went on strike.
Tata’s early closure decision was described last week as the “latest in a long line of threats that will not stop us” by Unite general secretary Sharon Graham.
“The strikes will continue until Tata stops his disastrous plans,” she said on Thursday. A ban on overtime had already been in effect since June 17.
Another union representing Port Talbot steelworkers welcomed Unite’s pause in industrial action and the fact that it is “returning to the table with its sister steel unions”.
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Tata would resume discussions if the strike was called off, said Alun Davies, national director of the Steelworkers Union’s Community.
“The truth is that Tata has never walked away from these discussions and at our last meeting on May 22, all unions agreed to conclude negotiations and present the result to our members. The community will welcome the resumption of these discussions, but we regret that there has been zero progress made since May 22.”
Tata has been contacted for comment.
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