The great backdoor package ‘steal’

The Tories have carried out a ‘smash and grab’ raid on the £80m package promised for retraining and supporting sacked Redcar steelworkers and boosting the local economy. It has just emerged that the Tories are robbing the package of £30m – snatching back over a third of its value – to pay for unpaid salaries and redundancy payments.

The package was announced on October 2 by business secretary Sajid Javid who was under fire for lack of action. The official announcement said the £80m was for: “funding for affected workers to train at local further education colleges and tailored support for them via Jobcentre Plus; and “finance to assist workers if they want to start up their own business and for local small businesses to grow and create jobs.”

In a written statement on October 13, Javid made no mention of any raid on the retraining package and underlined government support “through a package of up to £80m, will continue to invest in them and the future of the Tees Valley economy.”

Backdoor

Despite repeated mention of the details of the £80m retraining and regeneration package by numerous ministers, none of them mentioned the backdoor £30m raid on the fund. But hapless James Wharton, the ‘clown’ minister for the Northern Powerhouse, let slip the £30m ‘smash and grab’ raid in an email to a constituent.

Redcar MP Anna Turley challenged Prime Minister David Cameron – who has also trumpeted the £80m package – in the House of Commons. She said, “the Prime Minister told this House that he would do everything he could to keep steelmaking on Teesside, he failed.

“And now we learn that ÂŁ30m of the support package that the government promised for retraining and economic regeneration is not only going towards the statutory redundancies of those who lost their jobs, but I also have an email here from the Northern Powerhouse minister to a constituent in Stockton South that says it’s also going to be used to pay for the final salaries of those who lost their jobs in the last month.

“I’d like to ask the Prime Minister how much more injustice does he think the people of Teesside can endure?”

The news came as it emerged the local council will see a ÂŁ15m hole in its finances when the plant closes. SSI paid over ÂŁ15m in business rates on that one site, more than the tax paid to the Treasury by Amazon on its entire UK operation.

Tony Burke, Unite assistant general secretary said, “It’s clear the government did not do all it could to help Redcar and let it go to the wall. But the £30m raid on the money they did promise is, in my view, the sort of dishonest politics that turns people’s stomachs.

‘Underhand’

“It’s a bad enough blow to the people of the region. The government  pretending it is doing more than it is will to many people be underhand and unacceptable.”

There is a growing worldwide support for real action to sustain the long term future of steelmaking outside of China. The World Steel Association estimates a near doubling of worldwide demand for steel over the next 30 years.

President Leo Gerard of the USW (United Steelworkers of America and Canada) says,“Steel-producing countries around the world urgently need a co-ordinated, proactive response by their governments to China’s destructive and illegal dumping policies.

“This must include anti-dumping measures and specific interventions to rescue endangered jobs and save steelmaking communities. But governments  must go further to embrace an active industrial policy that promotes sorely-needed investment in technology, training and national infrastructure.

“The USW and Unite, together in our global union Workers Uniting, demand that governments take these actions immediately to save our steel industry.”

 

Solidarity 

Gerard added, “The United Steelworkers stand in solidarity with Unite and steelworkers across the United Kingdom at Tata, SSI and Caparo who are facing the devastating  consequences of unfair Chinese dumping and government inaction.

“In the United States, Canada and around the world, steel mills are shutting down, devastating communities and undermining the foundations of national economies, as China mercilessly dumps tens of millions of tons or artificially-subsidized steel into global markets.”