UK trade union Unite suspends strike action at Tata Steel's Port Talbot

(This report has been updated)

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UK trade union Unite on Monday suspended industrial strike action at Tata Steel’s operations in South Wales slated for next week.

In a statement, the trade union said that its current industrial action at Tata Steel in South Wales has been paused. “The decision follows confirmation from Tata, arising from high level talks throughout the weekend, that it was now prepared to enter into negotiations about future investment for its operations and not just redundancies, in South Wales, including at Port Talbot,” Unite said in a statement.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham termed it as a ‘significant’ development in the battle to protect jobs and the long-term future of steel making in South Wales. “Investment from Labour secured by Unite will be key to the future of the site,” Graham said.

 

The general elections in the United Kingdom (UK) is scheduled for July 4 and Unite is the Labour party’s biggest trade union backer. Unite is one of the three unions at Tata Steel’s Port Talbot plant.

About 1,500 Unite members at Tata Steel in South Wales, began an overtime ban and work to rule on June 17 and were due to begin an all-out indefinite strike from July 8. “Both forms of industrial action have been paused,” the trade union said.

Tata Steel said that it had received written confirmation from Unite regarding suspension of its current action short of a strike with immediate effect as well as the proposed strike action due for July 8.

“As a result, and given we can now be confident of ensuring appropriate resourcing of activities to operate safely, we will halt preparations for the early cessation of operations on blast furnace 4 and the wider heavy end in Port Talbot, planned for this week - we welcome the fact that we have avoided having to progress down this path,” a spokesperson for Tata Steel said.

The company said that the resumption of discussions with the UK Steel Committee would progress from the position reached in the last meeting of May 22. It would focus on the future investments and aspirations for the business and not on a renegotiation of the existing plan for the heavy-end closure or the enhanced employment support terms.

“The wind-down process for blast furnace 5 has now begun to plan and we expect to produce its final iron at the end of this week,” the spokesperson added.

Alun Davies, National Officer for Community the steelworkers’ union, welcomed Unite’s decision to withdraw their strike action and said, "Tata confirmed that if the strike was called off they are ready to resume discussions on a potential MOU, through the Multi-Union Steel Committee which is chaired by Community.”

On June 21, Unite had announced its decision to go for strike action at Port Talbot and Llanwern in South Wales from July 8. At the root of the matter is closure of blast furnaces, which puts about 2,800 jobs at risk.

Following Unite’s strike call, Tata Steel had said that if the safety and stability of operations were put at risk, it would be forced to accelerate closure plans for blast furnaces. On June 28, Tata Steel further said that it was forced to commence legal action to challenge the validity of Unite’s ballot.

It also urged Unite to withdraw its industrial action and join Community and GMB unions to consider the company’s proposed memorandum of understanding (MoU), which puts forward a proposal including employee packages, training and skills development.

After protracted discussions, in September 2023, Tata Steel and the Conservative government in the UK agreed to a 1.25 billion investment proposal at Port Talbot. This included a 500 million pound grant from the UK government to replace an emission-intensive blast furnace technology to low carbon steelmaking through the EAF route.