YESTERDAY, venture capitalists Greybull Capital, who purchased Tata’s steel works in Scunthorpe for £1, launched ‘British Steel’, hoping with the renaming, to summon up the memories of the stability, job security and the wage and pension levels that the nationalised industry offered to its workforce.
Greybull describes itself as ‘a family office which makes long-term investments in private companies’. In fact, the London-based investment firm is run by financiers Marc and Nathaniel Meyohas and Richard Perlhagen. They are full-time plunderers!
The takeover of the hallowed name is just as phony as the £1 purchase of the plant, that saw the 4,000-plus-strong workforce agree to wage cuts, pension cuts and changes in working practices that will see the plant remain open for just one year.
Then no doubt Greybull Capital will come back for even bigger sacrifices, as the price for keeping the plant, or part of the plant going. Yesterday, the Community Union, on cue, said the name showed there was a ‘chance of a brighter future for steelmaking in the UK’. It was joined by Peter Hogg, the commercial director of the now British Steel plant. He said some customers were ‘really, really excited’ by the resurrection of the British Steel brand. He added that the pay cut was one in a series of measures that allowed the company to return to profit over the last two months.
Martin Foster, Unite’s convenor in Scunthorpe, said: ‘It should not be forgotten, though, that today would not have been possible if it had not been for the sacrifices the workforce has made as part of the firm’s transformation plan. For many, it has involved tough choices about pay and their jobs.’
The Long Products business now employs 4,800 people – 4,400 in the UK and 400 in France. It includes the Scunthorpe plant, which makes steel for the rail and construction sectors, two mills in Teesside, an engineering workshop in Workington, a design consultancy in York, and associated distribution facilities, as well as a rail mill in northern France.
Urging the government to allow the European Union to take tougher action on the dumping of cheap Chinese steel and to do more to help with high energy costs and business rates, Unite called on ministers to compel firms building Britain’s infrastructure to use UK steel. Unite forgets that China, and its Stalinist bureaucracy, have adopted Cameron and Osborne as their partners in Europe!
Unite’s leader Len McCluskey said of the workforce: ‘They have demonstrated that with the right backing they can secure a future for steelmaking in the UK. While workers at the newly formed British Steel will be looking to the future with a degree of certainty, they will be mindful of the uncertainty surrounding their former colleagues at Tata Steel sites across the UK.
‘Tata Steel owes it to its workforce to continue to be a responsible seller by selling its remaining assets, as one entity, to a buyer which is committed to steelmaking in the long-term. The government needs to continue to play its part too. The UK’s steelworkers make some of the best steel in the world, but can only forge a bright future if the government builds on its promises and develops an industrial strategy with a steel heart that puts UK steel first.’
The quote shows that McCluskey is depending on the Tories to rescue and maintain the privatised sectors of what was British Steel, by saying that ‘The UK’s steelworkers … can only forge a bright future, if the government builds on its promises …’
If the Tories are the key to a bright future for steel workers, and their promises are to be believed, then the workers are doomed. In fact, Tata Steel is now considering hanging onto Port Talbot and is urging the Tories to not just legislate to cut pensions by 10% by moving them to the CPI inflation rate, but to put the entire pension fund into the government’s PPF, the Pension Protection Fund, which will mean pension cuts on a massive scale.
The only way to forge a bright future is to struggle. Workers must occupy the Port Talbot plant and demand a general strike to bring down the Tories and to bring in a workers government that will renationalise steel and put it under workers’ management. Then the future will be bright!
