Steel industry ‘needs government help’

The government has been asked to step in to prop up the steel industry after 428 jobs are set to go in North East.

Union leaders have asked for Whitehall help after Corus announced the job losses are part of a national move to cut 2,000 jobs because of a decline in orders.

There is speculation that parent company Tata steel is weeks away from mothballing their Teeside blast furnace endangering a further 3,000 jobs, after the chief executive of Tata’s European operations said the plant would be closed.

Regional organiser for the Unit Unions, Bob Bolam, said: “This is yet another blow for Teeside and its economy. These are high quality, highly skilled jobs that are being lost, and the impact on this region is devastating.

“We would call on the government to urgently support steelmaking in the UK. Intervention is badly needed.”

Corus said 156 jobs were under threat at the Hartlepool Corus Tubes plant, 150 at Lackenby, 113 at Skinningrove and 9 at the Darlington Corus Trailers site.

Ashok Kumar, MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, who worked at British Steel before it became Corus, said: “As someone who earned his living as a British Steel employee before entering Parliament, I felt very sad when I heard this news. Steel making is in my blood.”

The plans to mothball the Teeside Cast Products (TCP) plant in Redcar come after a deal by an international steelbuying consortium was terminated, and unless the site finds an alternative buyer the site will close.

80% of the TCP work load was to be bought out by the consortium, headed by Italian based Marcegaglia, but when relations soured Gordon Brown pledged to do everything possible to bring them back to the negotiating table.