{"id":6121,"date":"2015-10-05T17:14:34","date_gmt":"2015-10-05T16:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=6121"},"modified":"2015-10-06T10:15:43","modified_gmt":"2015-10-06T09:15:43","slug":"from-anger-to-devastation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=6121","title":{"rendered":"From anger to devastation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The immediate future of 3,000 workers at the SSI steelmaking plant in Redcar is up in the air after owners SSI UK went into liquidation last Friday (October 2).<\/p>\n

 
\nThe move followed an announcement just days earlier that the Teesside plant would be mothballed with the loss of 1,700 jobs.<\/p>\n

 
\nAround 2,000 direct employees are waiting for letters telling them if they are required or not, but in reality all face redundancy. Over 1,000 contractors have already been laid off and are being paid \u00c2\u014125 a day.<\/p>\n

 
\nSSI and other UK steelmakers blame the dumping of cheap Chinese made steel on the world market at prices below what it costs to make. That, couple with a deliberate devaluation of the Chinese currency have driven down global steel prices.<\/p>\n

 
\nIt has been effective as a means of wiping out China\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s competitors. The UK government has agreed a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098steel summit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 in two weeks\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 time, a whole month after the day they announced it.<\/p>\n

 
\nUnite convenor Kevin Cook says the mood in Redcar varies from anger, to numbness to devastation.<\/p>\n

 
\nNightmare<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a nightmare, the workers and the area do not really know the scale of what has hit them.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe direct employees are looking at redundancy but won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get the payments until at least six to eight weeks. Up to two months without money is going to cause a lot of hardship and worry.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bMany of the 1,000 contractors on the site have just been laid off on \u00c2\u014125 a day. A lot of small companies have not been paid for months, and small contractors not paid.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSSI is in liquidation and the official receiver called in. Many of those companies and contractors will not see much of the money they are owed.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had cut backs before and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen the local town decimated with the bigger shops closing, pubs closing and the pound shops coming in. This closure is on a different scale and this area will not recover, it is devastating.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m 55 and have never been out of work since I was a 16 year old. There are people here with young families with mortgages who thought they had a decent job and now it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gone.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere are whole families employed at the plant. They will have lost everything.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe government says it has put some money up \u00e2\u20ac\u201c around \u00c2\u014180m \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but that is to pay for the aftermath of closure. We think some of that will go on redundancy payments and maybe a bit of training so we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see how much of that is actually spent.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bBut little has been done by the government to save the plant itself. And then we hear that the UK taxpayer has given a low interest \u00c2\u014145m loan to a company run by Chelsea owner Roman Abramovic so he can refurbish a steel works in Canada.<\/p>\n

 
\nKick in the teeth<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bHearing that news was a real kick in the teeth. Talk of a Northern Powerhouse appears to be that \u00e2\u20ac\u201c talk, there is nothing to back it up.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhat is happening at Redcar can sweep across the UK steel industry. We could arrive in a few years \u00e2\u20ac\u201c maybe sooner \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and find there is no UK steel industry.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe government needs to decide whether they want a UK manufacturing base or not. If they do, then they need the core industries like steel and others to underpin it.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe had great support when we marched and rallied near the Tory conference on Sunday. The Redcar steelworkers were cheered on by the marchers, it was good, but we need more than backing from our supporters.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The immediate future of 3,000 workers at the SSI steelmaking plant in Redcar is up in the air after owners SSI UK went into liquidation last Friday (October 2).   The move followed an announcement just days earlier that the Teesside plant would be mothballed with the loss of 1,700 jobs.   Around 2,000 direct […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6122,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[396,269],"wps_subtitle":"Govt has \u00e2\u20ac\u0098done little\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 to help save jobs ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6121"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6128,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6121\/revisions\/6128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}