Relief at Tata vote

By -
Column published in Llanelli Herald on 24 February 2017



I felt a huge sense of relief when the news came through on Wednesday afternoon that TATA workers had voted to endorse the deal negotiated by the unions to secure the future of their plants.

In the end the majority was 75% of workers.

It would have been an economic disaster for our area if they had listened to Plaid Cymru’s call for them to vote it down. The Heavy End at Port Talbot would have closed, hundreds of workers would have lost their jobs and there would have been a big ripple effect on the whole economy.

Of course it wasn’t a black and white situation. There was understandable and justifiable anger by many older workers who felt the future they had planned, and worked for, has been taken away from them.

The events of the last year have created deep mistrust amongst many workers towards TATA. Even though it is broadly agreed that TATA have been good owners, even now committing to future investment when the UK-arm of its business is not profit making, the way that they put their plants up for sale last year and then refused to sell has created ill-feeling.

It is now up to TATA to keep its promises and invest in state of the art plant, in order to gain the most competitive edge and secure the future of the steel industry here in Llanelli and across the UK.

We also need the UK Government to recognise the huge commitment of the workers, and to start doing a lot more to support the steel industry. Tata’s senior management have been clear that the Tories have not followed through on their promises of help. In contrast to the Welsh Government who put the money on the table that enabled to deal to go ahead.

The plants can now work on the turnaround plan that TATA have agreed to fund. This includes a commitment to run two blast furnaces at Port Talbot until 2021 with an investment of around £50M.

There are still uncertainties ahead, not least the impact of Brexit. Two-thirds of what TATA makes in the UK is exported to the EU, and if the Prime Minister does not negotiate tariff-free access to the Single Market the steel products we produce could become more expensive to sell.

For me the big lesson of the last year is that we must become less reliant on the whims of international corporations. We must rebuild our local economy to grow local firms, grounded in their communities, to make us more resilient to external shocks.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2023 - 5 big changes in transport in Wales

By -
Image
Changing direction takes you to a different destination... We ask our transport system to do a lot of things, but we’ve not asked it to make its contribution to our shared challenge of reducing carbon emissions. Indeed, transport is the sector that has contributed the least to the legal duty to cut emissions. Unless that changes we will not meet our overall NetZero imperative . It is difficult for any incoming Transport Minister to change much in the short-term - road and rail projects take upwards of seven years to implement, and the ongoing pipeline of schemes means that significant spending has already been committed and political expectations raised by the time a new Minister takes office. Though the political spotlight is inevitably on short-term problems, significant change is a longer term project. Over and above the day-to-day activity of keeping a transport system on track I have tried to focus on how to ‘change the wiring’ to secure medium to long-term change. For all its ch
Read more

Transport for Wales 2.0

By -
Image
Speech to Transport for Wales senior management at Llys Cadwyn, TfW HQ, in Pontypridd on 6th February 2024 Diolch am y croeso a y cyfle. James Price and I meet regularly, and sometimes it feels like we’re in charge. But it really is a privilege to be in the same room as the people who actually do run transport in Wales. And it’s so nice to see people together. I’m still adjusting to meeting people in the flesh who I’m used to seeing online; I still can’t believe how short everyone is when I meet them! Apart from the ones I already knew were short, obviously (you know who you are). The worst thing about those mass Teams calls is that I can’t see people’s reactions to what I’m saying – to confirm that they are drifting off.  So at least I’ll know for sure today that I am boring you – the people in the room at least. It won’t stop me, but it gets rid of the uncertainty. I know we’ve priced-in that politicians' speeches will be insincere, but I really do mean what I say. And I
Read more

How much is a life worth?

By -
Image
  So what will the cost to the economy be of a safer speed limit in residential areas?   The headline figure that has been estimated is 4.5 Billion.  It is an arresting figure, but it isn’t really what it seems.  As part of the  Explanatory Memorandum  we have to publish we have to produce an estimate of costs and benefits. And we have to use the approach set out in the  UK Treasury’s Green Book  for evaluating schemes.   And we have to try and put a financial value to this, but of course there are some things you cannot measure: the grief to a family of a child killed on their street; the social value of meeting neighbors in the street and chatting, the absence of stress from engine noise that is louder in a street with a 30mph limit.  Those things and more aren’t captured by the Treasury Green Book.  It measures what it can, and it tries to put a monetary value next to it. And as the Explanatory Memorandum makes clear there is a lot of uncertainty about these figures. 
Read more