Vol. 80/No. 18 May 9, 2016
Workers discuss how to take on steel job cuts in UK
and world
Complaining of high pension costs, “dumping” from China, the global “oversupply” of steel and high energy prices and taxes in the U.K., steel bosses have already laid off thousands over the past year. Claiming that its operations are losing £1 million a day ($1.45 million), Tata, which owns the bulk of U.K. steel production, announced it’s moving out of the country altogether, putting a further 15,000 steelworkers’ jobs in limbo, as many as 4,000 here.
U.K. Business Secretary Sajid Javid announced April 21 that the government would be ready to take a 25 percent stake in Tata’s U.K. operations as part of any sale. No buyer is likely to take over Tata’s £15 billion pension fund, which covers over 130,000 current and former workers, and claims a £485 million deficit. A government takeover of the fund would mean workers losing from 10 percent to 30 percent of their pensions, according to the Financial Times.
Union officials have refused to organize a fight for jobs, subordinating workers’ interests to calls to “Save Our Steel” — to make the capitalist industry profitable again. At the Scunthorpe works in North Lincolnshire, where hundreds have already lost their jobs, workers voted for a 3 percent pay cut and reductions in pensions for the next year, a concession recommended by union officials as part of a buyout of the Tata works there by Greybull Capital.
Union leaders have backed steel bosses’ demands that the government cut taxes on steel companies and use only British-made steel for construction projects. Roy Rickhuss, general secretary of the steelworkers union Community, and Karl Koehler, director of Tata’s European operations, jointly led a contingent of hundreds of steelworkers from the U.K. at a “mass lobby” in Brussels Feb. 15, calling on the European Union to slap tariffs on Chinese steel imports.
Ignored in all this is the fact that at least half a million Chinese steelworkers face layoffs, along with 1.3 million coal miners.
Communist workers from London and Manchester went door to door in Port Talbot to discuss a working-class response to this crisis.
Jean Cody, whose husband, Bernard, is a retired steelworker, spoke with Jonathan Silberman, Communist League candidate for mayor of London. “It started with the mines. Now it’s steel,” she said, referring to the obliteration of coal mining in the U.K., including in South Wales, in the 1980s and ’90s. Silberman responded that the steel industry is part of a worldwide crisis of production and trade.
“It’s absurd to say that there’s too much steel in the world today,” Silberman said. “Doesn’t Africa need roads, railways, bridges, dams and other projects? Building such infrastructure would help close the gap between workers in semicolonial nations and countries like the U.K. When companies speak of too much steel, what they really mean is too much steel to sell at the profit they require.”
“The labor movement should be leading the fight for a crash program of government-funded public works to provide jobs, and build the homes, schools, hospitals and infrastructure projects working people need,” he added.
Cody replied that “I can’t see the government doing that.” Silberman said that when the sugar industry in Cuba was cut back, the revolutionary government collaborated with sugar workers through thousands of meetings, guaranteed their wages and organized training for other jobs. “This was the product of a revolution that put workers in power and replaced the dog-eat-dog values of capitalism with human solidarity,” he said. “We should demand that the government guarantees wages of steelworkers. That would involve a real fight by the unions.”
Related articles:
Verizon strikers stand up to attacks on their unions
Workers rally, answer bosses’ propaganda
‘Teamster Politics’: lessons of 1930s battles for fighters today
Verizon strike is fight for all workers!
Cargill fires workers, challenges jobless pay
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