By Dave Stockton
The Labour government took control (but not ownership) of the British Steel plant in Scunthorpe on 12 April. It took just six hours from opening the parliamentary debate to getting the King’s consent.
The previous Chinese owners, Jingye Group, had turned down a £500 million government rescue plan, demanding £2bn to convert to electric arc furnaces. This brinkmanship led to Jingye starving the furnaces of fuel, and Labour rushing to save them from ruin. But having gained control, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds is still hoping to find a buyer for the steel mill rather than nationalise it.
At the end of the privatisation process in 1998, there were still around 100,000 workers employed in the steel industry. Today it employs just 37,000. But those workers largely live in communities where there are no other comparable jobs.
In Scunthorpe 2,700 steelworkers jobs are at risk, plus tens of thousands more who rely on supply chains and local business.
Labour’s move was obviously an immediate relief to the 2,700. But it falls short of the demands of the unions for full nationalisation. Labour is still resisting this, not least because of the cost of compensating its private owners.
The union leaders have pointed to the needs of the defence industry and ‘national security’ to justify the maintenance of an independent steel making industry. But we believe workers should have different—and better—priorities.
Steel is needed for vital infrastructure projects: building socially owned housing, new hospitals and schools, public transport, and renewable energy production. We should demand that Jingye and the whole industry open their books to workers’ inspection to see where the money has gone since privatisation.
We demand the re-nationalisation of all steel, without compensation to the billionaire owners, this time under workers’ control, and its integration into a plan of socially useful public works, to meet public need not private greed.
