Tata announce threat to hundreds of steel jobs could go at Newport plant

Hundreds of jobs could go at a steelmaking factory in Newport after its owner announced it was shutting part of its operations.

The steel giant Tata is closing its Orb Electrical Steels base in the Pill area of the city.

Up to 380 jobs could go from the plant, which makes electrical steel used in power transmission.

The company has been for sale since May 2018 as Tata had decided to concentrate on its core steel production business.

Tata Steel’s European operations head Henrik Adam said: “I recognise how difficult this news will be for all those affected and we will work very hard to support them.”

BBC Wales has been told the 380 workers can be redeployed at its Welsh plants.

Unions said Tata – which employs nearly 6,000 workers in Wales – was breaking its commitments over job guarantees.

Orb Electrical Steels is part of Tata’s Cogent division, part of which is being sold to the Japanese steel company JFE Shoji Trade Corporation.

The Orb site makes electrical steel used in generators, transformers, motors and magnetic products, including for the car industry.

But the sector has been suffering from over-capacity over the last 10 years, and struggling to compete in particular with big volume producers in China.

“This business is the smallest volume electrical steel manufacturer in the world – and we’ve only been able to make a profit in two of the last 10 years and no profit in the last four years,” Tor Farquhar, Tata Steel Europe’s HR director, told BBC Wales.

Meanwhile, converting the Orb plant would have cost Tata more than £50m.

Mr Adam added: “Continuing to fund substantial losses at Orb Electrical Steels is not sustainable at a time when the European steel industry is facing considerable challenges.”

Roy Rickhuss of the Community steelworkers’ union called it “shocking” news which “makes a mockery of the understanding we reached with Tata around the jobs guarantee”.

“There has been no consultation about this proposal either at UK or European level and company management should hang their heads in shame in the way this has come about,” he said.

“This is of course extremely devastating news for workers at the Orb, but all Tata Steel workers should be concerned by the way Tata is breaking its commitments.”

He called for government intervention.

One of the plant’s union officials Paul Horton, who has nearly 37 years experience, said it would mean a loss of well-paid jobs in the area, with workers earning up to £40,000, with overtime on top.

“We weren’t expecting anything this severe, this quickly,” he said. “We understand the business has been struggling but there has been no inkling of this happening over the last few weeks.”

Unite’s Tata official Tony Brady said Orb’s closure would be a “body blow” for the economy of Wales.

“Unite will be fighting for every job and holding Tata Steel’s feet to the fire over assurances that workers affected by today’s announcement will be redeployed.”

He said the union would not sit back and allow “decent well-paid jobs and irreplaceable skills to go to the wall”.

Mr Adam said workers would be offered alternative employment at other Tata sites where possible and consultations with staff and unions would start shortly.

Tata is also closing its Wolverhampton Engineering Steels service centre, with up to 26 jobs at risk.

There has been steelmaking on the Newport site since 1898, when the old Lysaght company moved from Wolverhampton.

The famous city landmark, the transporter bridge, was built to carry workers across to the works.

It eventually became part of British Steel and then European Electrical Steels in 1991.

Future of Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port factory in grave danger

Boris Johnson is playing “no-deal roulette” with the future of the Ellesmere Port car plant, unions have warned.

Amid reports that PSA, the factory’s French owner, would close it in the event of an unsatisfactory Brexit, leaders of the Unite union said that the prime minister was in danger of undoing talks to bring the next generation of the Vauxhall Astra and other cars to the site in Cheshire.

The plant, which opened in 1962, employed 12,000 workers in the heyday of the bestselling Vauxhall Viva. In 2011 it still employed 3,500 people. However, since PSA, the company behind Peugeot and Citroën, bought the European assets of General Motors — namely Vauxhall and Opel — two years ago, the workforce has dwindled to a little over 1,000. Last year the factory made 77,481 Astras. It has capacity to build 200,000.

Ellesmere Port makes only the Astra and is the company’s sole British carmaking plant. PSA has said already that the next generation of the Astra will be built in Germany from 2021, with Ellesmere Port as a secondary plant. Carlos Tavares, 60, PSA’s chief executive, told the Financial Times that if Ellesmere Port was not profitable after Brexit, he would switch production elsewhere.

Steve Turner, assistant general secretary of Unite, said that there had been positive talks with PSA, but added: “All that hard work is hanging by a thread as Boris Johnson and his government of hard Brexiteers play no-deal roulette with the livelihoods of thousands of Vauxhall workers and their colleagues in the supply chain.”

A spokesman for Vauxhall UK said that work for Ellesmere Port would be conditional on the final terms of the UK’s exit from the European Union . . . PSA has put into place a comprehensive ‘no-deal’ contingency plan.”

Vauxhall owner could pull the plug on Astra’s UK production

The chief executive of Vauxhall-owner PSA says it could move all production from its Ellesmere Port factory if Brexit makes it unprofitable.

Carlos Tavares told the Financial Times that the firm has alternatives to the plant which it could use.

The move would probably lead to the closure of the site, the FT said, threatening 1,000 jobs.

That would leave Vauxhall’s Luton-based van plant as its last presence in the UK.

“Frankly I would prefer to put it [the Astra car] in Ellesmere Port but if the conditions are bad and I cannot make it profitable then I have to protect the rest of the company and I will not do it,” Mr Tavares told the paper.”We have an alternative to Ellesmere Port.”

The government is now “working on the assumption” of a no-deal Brexit, said Michael Gove, who has been charged by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to prepare for leaving the EU with no deal.

Mr Gove said his team still aimed to come to an agreement with Brussels but, writing in the Sunday Times, he added: “No deal is now a very real prospect.”

‘Not an option’

The Confederation of British Industry has warned the government that neither the UK or EU is ready for a no-deal Brexit.

And the car industry lobby group, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders warned on Friday that “No deal Brexit is simply not an option.”

Car production has been falling in the UK over the past year, amid increasing pleas from the industry for a Brexit deal.

The UK’s automotive industry has received a series of blows in recent months, with Honda announcing it will close its Swindon plant in 2021.

Ford also said its Bridgend engine plant in south Wales would close in September 2020 with the loss of 1,700 jobs.

Japanese car producers, including Nissan, have said that Brexit uncertainty is not helping them “plan for the future”.

Earlier this year, Nissan opted to build the next X-Trail model in Japan, rather than in Sunderland