Tata Steel has told workers it could to cease operations at its steel plant in Port Talbot months earlier than planned because of a strike. The company had been planning to shut down one of the blast furnaces by the end of June and the second one by September. But workers at the South Wales site have been told that Tata plans to cease operations at both furnaces no later than 7 July because of the strike by members of Unite , which starts the following day.
The company said the strike meant it could no longer be assured of sufficient resources being available to ensure safe and stable operations. A Tata Steel spokesperson said: “In the coming days, if we cannot be certain that we are able to continue to safely operate our assets in a stable fashion 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. “That is not a decision we would take lightly, and we recognise that it would prove extremely costly and disruptive throughout the supply chain, but the safety of people on or around our sites will always take priority over everything else.
” Unite called the strike in protest at plans to switch to a more environmentally friendly way to produce steel, with the loss of thousands of jobs. The union’s general secretary, Sharon Graham, said: “Unite is fighting for the future of the steel industry. We have secured serious investment from Labour to safeguard jobs.
Tat.
