TUC: Scunthorpe Steelworks – Time To Act To Future-Proof Jobs

By Ali Poncia, TUC Policy Officer Decarbonising Industry

A major threat to the UK’s steel industry is brewing at Scunthorpe’s steelworks. We must act now to prevent thousands more job losses in steel and future-proof our vital manufacturing industry.

The planned closure of the Port Talbot blast furnaces and likelihood of mass redundancies has gained significant media attention in recent months. But there are mounting fears that another major threat to the UK steel industry, with much less coverage, could soon be unfolding at Scunthorpe’s steelworks.

British Steel, the Chinese-owned company that runs the steelworks, has put forward a proposal to government and secured planning permission to close its blast furnace operations and switch to electric arc furnace (EAF) recycled steel production, reportedly seeking £600m government support. This switch could reduce steel production capacity in Scunthorpe by 50% and would likely make more than 2,000 of the current 3,200 workforce redundant, with much further reaching impacts on the thousands of jobs that rely on the steelworks, either directly within the supply chain, or indirectly as local businesses that rely on steelworker custom.

Whilst rapid decarbonisation of steel production is a necessity, and a transition to EAF production does cut emissions, this single-track strategy at both Scunthorpe and Port Talbot will leave the UK without primary steel production, and has been heavily criticised as ‘decarbonisation on the cheap’. This approach will ultimately lead to offshoring of jobs and emissions as the UK will be forced to resort to imports to fulfil its demand for primary steel, likely resulting in a higher overall carbon toll.

In Europe, every major steelmaking country is pursuing a combination of green hydrogen-based primary steelmaking and EAFs, with substantial public investment and a central focus on job security.

Steelworkers have long been advocating for investment in upgrades to steelworks that cut emissions, as a means to futureproof the skilled and good quality jobs offered by the industry, and the climate movement stands in their support.

In July, Community Trade Union addressed a rally outside Tata Steel’s London HQ in support of steelworkers, alongside climate organisations including Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion and Green New Deal Rising. This followed an open letter signed by more than 30 climate groups in the UK calling on government to halt Tata Steel’s current proposals and negotiate an alternative that secures jobs and future-proofs the industry.

In April, a Unite the Union handed a 30,000 strong petition to local politicians in support of steel jobs at Scunthorpe. Workers’ voices must be included in the plans that directly affect their livelihoods, they must have a seat at the negotiating table that has so far been reserved only for government and steel companies.

More than forty years on from the closure of Shotton steelworks in North Wales that left 6,500 workers jobless in a single day, we now have four decades’ worth of hindsight into the local economic devastation and political disillusionment caused by policy decisions that decimate industry with no credible protections for impacted workers and communities – communities which are failed again and again. Decarbonisation that excludes workers and fails our communities is wholly unacceptable, and entirely avoidable.

The government has earmarked £2.5 billion for steel decarbonisation under its new National Wealth Fund, and Jonny Reynolds, the recently appointed Secretary of State for Business and Trade, has voiced a strong commitment to support steelworkers: “Decarbonisation does not mean deindustrialisation, and I will be working to safeguard jobs […], securing the future of steelmaking communities for generations to come”.

Scunthorpe is now at a crossroads with an ever-shrinking window of opportunity: the government must deliver on its commitment to leverage decarbonisation that brings workers along, or else risk sacrificing a critical industry and further breaking the trust of communities already repeatedly betrayed by false promises.

Right wing media outlets are quick to push out the narrative that jobs must be sacrificed under the climate agenda. Across the UK, the stakes of failing to deliver on the just transition are high, with far-right groups seeking to stoke division and offer a home for anger amongst those failed by the state.

But it’s possible to get the transition right, too. In Scunthorpe, that would mean at the very least:

•Meaningful engagement with steelworkers’ unions to develop transition plans,

•A package of public and private investment, agreed between government, British Steel, and unions, conditional on

•Guarantees to protect jobs and support workers through the transition.

Getting it right offers the potential to not only retain and revitalise a thriving steel industry, but also to form the bedrock of a genuinely worker- and climate-friendly industrial strategy.