Unite calls off steelworkers’ strike in South Wales and cooperates with Labour government and Tata Steel UK
Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham has ended a strike by 1,500 steelworkers that was due to begin earlier this week on July 8.
Action was planned against Tata Steel UK’s plans to cut 2,800 jobs at its Port Talbot and Llanwern plants in South Wales, announced last September. Unite had withdrawn from talks with the company and union members were working on legislation that would ban overtime from June 17, followed by an indefinite strike.
To stop the strike, voted for in mid-April, Tata launched a brutal offensive, threatening legal action and intimidating the masses. In early June, workers at the Port Talbot plant were summoned to a meeting by management and forced to sign forms declaring their participation in the strike.
Tata also announced it would accelerate mass layoffs as the company could no longer guarantee the supply of blast furnaces with sufficient resources for safe and stable operations. In early July, the company announced the closure of both furnaces. It had originally planned to close one by the end of June and the second by the end of September. They will be replaced by electric arc furnaces, which will be replaced with far fewer workers with the help of a £500 million grant from the Tory government.
After Graham described the strike mandate as a “historic vote”, the Unite secretary’s militant posturing once again proved to be a fraud. When asked about the upcoming closures on June 30, Graham told BBC Wales: “You suspend the closure, we suspend the action.” The very next day, not only the planned strike was called off, but also the ban on overtime.
Announcing “new discussions” with the company, Graham told the press it was vital that these “proceed quickly and in good faith, with a focus on new investment and ensuring the long-term continuation of steel production in South Wales”. This was a diversionary tactic for Tata, which had confirmed on July 2 that it had begun closing one of its two blast furnaces at Port Talbot.
It has since come to light that Unite called off the strike at the instigation of Jonathan Reynolds, the Labour Party’s shadow business secretary at the time. Reynolds had spoken to the union representatives on 27 June, according to the Financial TimesThe talks between Reynolds, the Welsh Government and the Unite, GMB and Community unions aimed to stifle steelworkers’ opposition to the jobs massacre with the promise of a cheaper solution under a Labour government.
Onay Kasab, a member of the Socialist Party and national leader of the Unite Party, played a central role. He was quoted by FT“We have asked Tata not to make any irreversible changes before the election,” he said.
The leaders of the Community and GMB unions had already joined in by refusing to accept strike mandates from their own members and insisting that no action would be taken before the election, thus preventing the first strike in the British steel industry for 40 years. Far from being a militant alternative, Unite under Graham followed suit.
Reynolds, now the Labour government’s business secretary, said only that Tata had “a better deal” based on the additional £2.5 billion in subsidies the company had offered the group. He dodged questions about job guarantees, adding that this was only part of the deal. At the same time, he warned: “Blast furnaces employ more people than some of the newer technologies that are out there.” In other words, workers are left to accept the loss of their livelihoods as a fait accompli while the company receives further government subsidies.
At best, this means a more grueling approach to job cuts and a delay in the closure of the second blast furnace. This will allow job cuts to proceed under the guise of voluntary layoffs while the union bureaucracy divides workers and suppresses their actions. The company has announced a process for voluntary layoff requests until August 7.
The only job security will be for union bureaucrats and their highly paid posts. This is an example of the tripartite framework between government, unions and business promised by Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Unite’s general secretary is positioning herself for a seat at the table with top politicians. Graham described her meeting with Reynolds on Wednesday at a “high level” as “extremely positive” and added: “The commitment to a sustainable, profitable British steel industry is very welcome…”
“Over the last few months, Unite has fought to save jobs at Tata and revive the UK steel industry for the future of communities and our national security. We are at a critical first stage, but the additional investment now secured and the change of heart from this new Labour Government could be crucial in making this happen.”
While Graham has wagging his finger at Starmer, telling him not to support “austerity Mark II” and making empty threats to cut union funding if Labour does not “stand up for workers”, Graham and all sections of the union bureaucracy agree with the Labour government that corporate profitability and competitiveness, as well as British militarism, must be preserved.
Graham is notorious among the rank and file for covering up Starmer’s support for the genocide in Gaza. Not only has she banned any industrial boycott of British arms production and supplies to Israel, but she has also blocked Unite from participating in national demonstrations against the genocide there. This is in stark contrast to her unreserved support for NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, along with the Trades Union Congress, which supports a major nuclear buildup program.
This support for the war abroad is now taking its toll at home in the form of a war against the working class. By sabotaging any opposition to the job cuts at Tata Steel, the unions are laying the groundwork for their cooperation with the Labour government on a wider restructuring programme demanded by the corporations, including Labour’s support for the takeover of Royal Mail by the EP Group and for the further privatisation of the National Health Service.
It is Graham and her nationalist, pro-capitalist agenda that is stifling the fight at Tata Steel UK. Its parent company, Tata Steel Limited, is a transnational corporation that operates in over 100 countries and on six continents, employing 660,000 people worldwide. It is this workforce that generates its enormous profits and pays its shareholders £1.4 billion in dividends between 2019 and 2023. To defeat the corporation, this huge international workforce must be mobilized against its owners.
The installation of more energy efficient and less polluting arc furnaces is a step forward from a scientific and environmental perspective. However, from a social perspective, the shift to a “greener” form of steel production comes at the expense of the working class, resulting in massive job losses and social devastation.
In capitalism, such technological advances are used to increase the exploitation of workers and the private profits of corporations. Any advance in production should instead bring relief to workers and secure a future for working-class communities. This requires workers’ control and social ownership of production.
In contrast to the “national interests” that the Labour government and the trade union bureaucracy use to justify their line against Tata Steel UK, steelworkers must advance a perspective for a global counter-offensive across national borders, as set out in the programme of demands of the WSWS’s International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees.
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