Unite suspends overtime ban and general strike at steel giant

Unite has suspended an overtime ban and a planned general strike at steel giant Tata over job cuts, the union announced.

Unite members have taken industrial action, including a ban on overtime, and planned to hold a general strike starting next Monday.

The union is involved in a legal dispute with the company over plans to close the two blast furnaces at its plant in Port Talbot, South Wales, and switch to a more environmentally friendly way of producing steel that requires fewer workers.

The union said current industrial action and next week’s strike had been suspended.

The community and the GMB unions are also demanding that Tata change its plans, but have not called for industrial action.

The first blast furnace is scheduled to be shut down on Thursday, the second at the end of September.

Alun Davies, national representative of the Steelworkers Union, said: “Thousands of jobs are at stake and we welcome Unite’s decision to withdraw their strike and return to the negotiating table with their sister unions.”

“Tata confirmed that if the strike is ended, the company is ready to resume talks on a possible memorandum of understanding through the Multi-Union Steel Committee, which is chaired by the community.

“The truth is that Tata never broke off these talks and at our last meeting on May 22, all unions agreed to conclude the negotiations and present the result to our members.

“The community will welcome a resumption of these talks, but we regret that no progress has been made since 22 May.”

The announcement came after it emerged that Tata Steel was facing £500 million in losses after its Port Talbot steelworks was closed months earlier than planned as company bosses and union representatives pushed for a last-minute deal.

The company angered unions last week when it announced plans to bring forward the closure of its blast furnaces in South Wales to September due to strikes.

Plans to make a final decision on the future of the construction work have now been postponed, The Sunday Times reported, after further talks were agreed with union Unite. A final decision was originally planned to be made on Sunday.

Unite had called for indefinite industrial action from 9 July, leading to a split between the other two unions at the plant, Community and GMB, both of which had promised not to strike.

Unite says plans to halt steel production at Port Talbot will result in the loss of 2,800 jobs. The organisation is urging Tata to wait until there is a change of government before making any “irreversible decisions”.