Workers at a steel company in Wales suspend plans for a full-scale strike

Workers at the Port Talbot and Llanwern sites in Wales, represented by the Unite union, are involved in an industrial dispute with the Indian steel company Tata Steel over the company’s decision to close its blast furnaces and cut up to 2,800 jobs.

Around 1,500 workers at the sites, who had already begun a ban on overtime on June 17, were also scheduled to go on an indefinite strike starting July 8.

However, the union said it had suspended industrial action after the company confirmed it was ready to talk about “future investment in its operations and not just redundancies”.

“This is a significant development in the fight to save jobs,” said Unite general secretary Sharon Graham. “It is vital that these talks progress quickly and in good faith, focusing on new investment.”

A company spokesman welcomed the union’s move to suspend the strikes.

“Now that we are confident that we can provide the resources required to operate safely, we will cease preparations for the early closure of Blast Furnace 4 and the other heavy furnace at Port Talbot,” they said.

When talks resume, “the focus will be on future investments and objectives for the company and not on renegotiating our existing plan to close the heavy lift carriers,” the spokesman added.

The company, which employs over 8,000 people in the UK, had previously said its steel production facilities were nearing the end of their life, were operationally unstable and were causing unsustainable losses of one million pounds.