Residents of Scunthorpe have been showing their support for steelworkers by putting up signs around town.
The ‘Steel Not For Sale’ signs have been made in the style of estate agent “for sale” boards. Residents and steelworkers past and presents came together during an action day to put up hundreds of the placards in streets including Davy Avenue, Long Road, Tomlinson Avenue, Ashdown Avenue and Holland Avenue.
Steelworkers in the town face an uncertain future, as British Steel proposes to replace the blast furnaces with a single electric arc furnace. Unions say it could lead to the loss of up to 2,000 jobs.
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Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, has called on the Government to act in the national interest. “Steel demand is growing and the UK is ideally place to be global leader in green steel if the right decisions are made,” she said. “The fight for the future of UK steel is now. Unite will be relentless in its campaigning until the right choices are made.”
Former steelworker Rodney Penaluna, who started working at the steelworks at the age of 15 in 1958 and and only retired after a heart attack in 1995, took part in the signs campaign. He told Grimsby Live that he worried for the future of the workers should the blast furnaces close. “It’s what going to happen afterwards that’s the problem,” he added.
(Image: Donna Clifford /Grimsby Live)
Martin Foster, a Unite representative, said: “We want British Steel to sit down with us and discuss in more detail the plan that they announced last year. We think we can come up with a better plan that will protect jobs in Scunthorpe.”
Cllr Judith Matthews, who also attended the signs event, said the loss of one steelworker job would affect five other jobs in the town, such is the importance of the steelworks to the local economy. “Scunthorpe is the steelworks, the steelworks is Scunthorpe, it’s in the DNA of Scunthorpe,” Cllr Matthews said. British steel should be made in Britain, she added.
Darryl Southern, a fellow Labour councillor, said: “This area alone is crying out for investment and the creation of new jobs, with Unite’s detailed workers’ plans for steel, the future can be very bright.”
Under the British Steel plans, the blast furnaces would stay in operation until the electric arc furnace becomes operational. While the new furnace would be considerably more environmentally friendly, Scunthorpe would lose the ability to make virgin or primary steel, with the majority of the town’s steelworkers facing an uncertain future in the medium to long term.
In the autumn, more than 160 businesses, community groups, sports and social clubs signed a Unite-organised open letter calling on the Government to save the town’s steel industry. Last month, Labour forced a vote in parliament on the future of the steel industry calling for an assessment by the end of February on the loss of virgin steelmaking capabilities in the UK. It passed, with Conservative MPs not voting.
“We need our steel – that is why a Labour government will invest £3bn into securing the industry’s future,” said former MP Sir Nic Dakin, Labour’s candidate for the Scunthorpe County constituency, in the wake of last month’s vote. Meanwhile, in January, the Conservative Party chairman, Richard Holden, said talks between the Government and British Steel’s owners were ongoing.
Original artice: https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/all-about/scunthorpe
