Save our steel

Unite delegate Ian Cameron (pictured front in blue shirt) spoke today (September 28) at the Labour party conference in support of UK steel, specifically calling on the government to intervene after it was announced this morning that 1,700 jobs were to go after the mothballing of a steel plant in Redcar.

“I come from Corby – which was a steel town until 1980,” Cameron noted. “The plant was closed and a third of the town’s workforce was made redundant.

“The demand of this motion is simple – we don’t want a similar fate to happen in Redcar.”

Cameron recounted how he and other marched several years ago to save the Redcar steel plant, which was owned by Tata at the time.

“Tata did close the plant but it was re-opened by SSI,” he explained. “As other speakers have said this morning it has been confirmed that SSI are mothballing the plant with the loss of 1,700 jobs. Steel is the lifeblood of the local economy and runs through the community’s veins.

“The workers at SSI have worked tirelessly to make the plant a success against a backdrop of high energy costs and difficult market conditions,” Cameron added. Yet now SSI are mothballing the plant – ending iron and steel making operations.

“This week Redcar steelworkers were paid, but only because HMRC fast-tracked money owed to SSI,” he went on to say. “Yet despite the possibility they weren’t going to be paid next month people still turned up for work, such is their deep determination to keep the plant running, secure their jobs and maintain their employment rights. Now they have received this morning’s devastating news.

“We want this government to urgently step in and ‘Save our Steel’ and support those workers.
“The plant in Redcar and the wider UK steel industry – plants such as Port Talbot, Scunthorpe and other local communities are of strategic economic importance – we cannot allow vital manufacturing skills and expertise to be lost forever.

“The other evening while George Osborne was touring China, promoting his ‘march of the makers’ and his ‘Northern powerhouse’, workers were holding a torchlight rally with the local MP to keep the light burning at Redcar,” Cameron recounted.

He highlighted that Unite was looking forward to developing Labour policy with Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Angela Eagle’s new shadow team in Business Innovation and Skills — policy which he said was “based on investment and an end to austerity economics to boost economic growth and productivity.”

Echoing Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke’s sentiments from earlier in the day, he called for the development of a manufacturing and industrial strategy based on decent, stable work; the ability for the workforce and unions to have a say in their companies and industries, a proper gold standard apprenticeship system, support for Small and Medium sized Enterprises.

“But right now, the priority is to do everything we can to support our members and the local community — pressing government ministers to intervene and save our steel and the Redcar plant,” Cameron concluded.

Watch his full speech in the video below: