Date: Monday 12th April 2010
Tata Corus redundancies on Teesside spark industrial action ballots says steel union
The announcement tomorrow, that Tata Corus CEO Kirby Adams will announce compulsory redundancies at Teesside Cast Products has drawn criticism and threats of Industrial action from the trade unions. The announcement, expected to be the compulsory redundancies of around 290 employees will see the loss of key skills, which will negatively impact upon the possibility of resuming production at the North East steel plant.
Speaking on behalf of the National Trade Union Steel Co-ordinating Committee, Community Union General Secretary Michael J. Leahy OBE said:
‘We will be announcing ballots for industrial action to oppose this move by Tata Corus. This is no longer about the workforce on Teesside, it is about confronting a management team which has comprehensively failed and whose decisions have endangered the future of steelmaking as a whole across the UK. The situation on Teesside is a disaster that can be laid at the feet of Corus UK management. The fact is that Corus UK were hostile to further production on Teesside by both refusing open discussion on a sale or supporting the workforce through the recession.
The lack of foresight is astonishing. On the day that CEO Kirby Adams announces hard redundancies on Teesside; the steel price has recovered to the point that production at TCP would be profitable. Never before has a single decision caused more pain, lost more money or shown less forethought than the decision to mothball TCP.
I am calling upon Ratan Tata to restore sanity to his UK business arm. Mr Tata has a worldwide reputation, not only as a savy business man, but also as an ethical and principled person. One decision here, could not only restore the workforce of TCP but rebuild Corus UK’s bottom line.
Date: Monday 4th May 2010
Steel union calls on Prime Minister to “make Corus come clean on TCP takeover bid”, says it will speak to “Tata Chairman directly” and says Corus must answer Teesside people’s questions.
Reacting to yesterday’s story in the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette that a rescue deal for Teesside Cast Products (TCP) may have been on the table for months, Michael Leahy, Community General Secretary, said:
“It looks more and more like Corus aren’t being straight with the TCP workforce and the people of Teesside about whether they have received a bid from SSI or any other party to purchase TCP and preserve steelmaking and thousands of jobs in the wider community.
“Two weeks ago Kirby Adams, Corus Chief Executive, in the presence of senior Corus executives, told Community, in answer to a direct question, that there were ‘discussions, but that there had been no firm offers’ for TCP. Now we hear that SSI may have had a bid on the table when he gave his answer. Subsequently he refused to give a written assurance that Corus had not received a bid. Just what is going on?
“There are several questions that Community believes Corus and parent company Tata must answer now:
1. Have they received any formal bids for TCP?
2. Have they accepted any of the bids, as their claim that the apparent SSI visit was part of a due-diligence process suggests?
3. If there is a process of due diligence going on, why has the potential purchaser not met with unions, One North East and the UK Government as is normal in a due diligence situation, as indeed was the case when Tata themselves bought Corus?
4. If there is a competitive bidding process for TCP going on, as Corus seem to suggest in their response to the Gazette, why did they choose to mothball the plant and make 1600 people redundant when they had existing customers for the slab steel and could, presumably, have sold any spare steel to potential bidders while a successful deal was concluded?
“The people of Teesside and the TCP workforce have a right to know whether Corus is serious about selling TCP or not. Kirby Adams and the Corus Board are not telling us the full story. That is why I have contacted Lord Mandelson and the Prime Minister and asked them to make Corus come clean on the alleged TCP takeover bid by speaking directly to Tata and SSI to find out what is going on and let the people of Teesside know. In addition, I will be contacting Ratan Tata, Chairman of the Tata Group, directly myself. I have met Mr Tata in the past and have always found him to be a man of great honesty and integrity and that is exactly what this situation requires.”