‘It’s a betrayal’: Port Talbot anger over Tata Steel’s decision to close furnaces

With temperatures a couple of degrees below zero, the news that Tata Steel had decided to shut down its blast furnaces, with the loss of 2,800 jobs, brought an added note of bitterness to an already freezing cold Port Talbot.

Blue skies and a piercing winter sun did little to lift the sombre mood engulfing the town on Friday as it faced up to a bleak and uncertain future, one many fear will parallel the devastation wreaked on neighbouring south Wales communities by the coal pit closures of the 80s.

“This plant isn’t part of the community, it is the community. We’re now fighting for a way of life. We’re an endangered species,” said Gary Keogh, 59, a Tata veteran and vice-chair of the Port Talbot multi unions.

“The mood is devastation, uncertainty and probably overnight – certainly in my case – it’s going to be anger.”

Of the town’s 32,000 residents, 4,000 are employed directly by the plant – with many more jobs dependent on the wages they spend. Tata’s decision to scale back its commitment to the UK means the majority of its workforce will be made redundant.

The steelworks are the lifeblood of Port Talbot, molten metal running through the town’s veins for almost 75 years.

Keogh has been there for 37 of them, ending his time on the factory floor at the plant’s blast furnace “heavy end”, and now fighting on behalf of embattled colleagues as a full-time union representative.

Ryan Morgan: ‘Port Talbot will always be steel town.’ Photograph: Robin Eveleigh/The Guardian

His father, a long-distance lorry driver, hauled steel from the plant, while his grandfather before him worked on the adjacent docks that supplied its furnaces with raw materials.

“It’s all linked,” said Keogh, a father-of-two with a son working at the plant. “For every steelworker, times it by four to get an idea of the wider support industry. And that’s not 12,000 people – it’s 12,000 families.”

Keogh poured cold water on the Indian conglomerate Tata’s claim that this was a move to green the business by replacing the two blast furnaces, which can make steel from scratch, with electric arc furnaces that will take four years to build and for now can process only recycled steel, pointing out that virgin steel production would probably shift overseas.

“It’s nothing to do with green,” scoffed Keogh. “This is about pounds, shilling and pence.

Tata Steel’s Port Talbot steelworks in south Wales. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

“They want to make their steel in Jamshedpur [in India] … bring it thousands of miles across the ocean on ships with diesel engines, and call it green. It’s time people were honest.”

The closures come after years of talks in which Keogh says unions were promised a gradual shift away from blast furnaces. Instead, they feel they have been led to a cliff edge by Tata’s decision to mothball most steel production during the four years it will take to built new furnaces.

“We put a credible plan to them and we were told we’d have a just transition,” he said. “But they’ve compressed a possible five- or six-year plan into a couple of months, and simply pressed the button on the nuclear option. It’s a complete betrayal.”

Stuart Phillips, 42, a blast furnace shift manager, has spent his entire working life at the plant, starting 26 years ago as an apprentice.

“Back then it was classed as a job for life,” he said. “Even in recent times some of the ventures they were looking to put forward would have secured the works for a second or third generation.

“We’re in disbelief. Yes – we knew change was coming. But not this fast, or this soon.”

He is now hoping that the work involved in decommissioning Tata’s furnaces will buy precious time for some employees, but fears Port Talbot ultimately faces becoming a “ghost town”.

“It’s going to decimate us,” he said. “Port Talbot is a relatively disadvantaged area anyway, and the steelworks have been a lifeline.

“The knock-on effect is going to be huge. Everyone down to the local newsagent is going to be affected.”

The sentiment was echoed at one local store, Tollgate Hardware, by employee Darren Edwards, 43.

“We supply, PPE, hardware – it’ll be a massive effect on us, on all the community, and right the way through to the valleys. Around here, nearly every family is involved in the plant in some way.

“OK, they’ve got to green it but like Stephen Kinnock said they’ve gone off a cliff edge rather than bridged it. People do move on but if you look at what’s happened to some of the valleys towns, there’s nothing there. If the same thing happens here, we’ll be in the same boat.”

Keogh, meanwhile, remained defiant in face of the crushing news.

Gary Keogh: ‘It’s nothing to do with green. This is about pounds, shilling and pence.’ Photograph: Robin Eveleigh/The Guardian

“There seems to be a bit of a misconception that we’re going to walk away from this quietly into the night,” he said. “I can guarantee you now, we will fight for every single inch of ground.

“We’ll take a ballot. We’ll lead our people for the right option for our survival, and to avoid turning this place into an industrial wasteland. We will not walk away from our industry, our works and our communities.”

Ryan Morgan, 37, owner of Steel Town Coffee Company, fears for the town as he contemplates a possible drop off in passing trade from overalled workers heading to or from their latest shift.

“It’s really sad,” he said. “Port Talbot is known for this plant. It’s like when the valleys lost their thriving coal communities, you go up there now and people don’t want to live in them. They’re stagnant, it’s like going back in time – is that the future for Port Talbot? The steelworks is what keeps the town rolling along.”

And what about his business – Steel Town Coffee. Will he have to change the name? “It doesn’t matter whether the plant closes or stays open – Port Talbot will always be steel town.”