Redcar Steelworks Ovens To Close For Good

[Arthurgray50@blu]

http://news.sky.com/story/1568234/re...close-for-good

Someone please explain to me why the British Government has again allowed another BRITISH INDUSTRY to fall.

Yet, spend millions of our money (proudly) go overseas. The Government is setting aside money to train workers made redundant by this closure. Create new job and businesses.

What they should have done, is everything in there power to save the UK Steel Industry. They crippled the mining industry under Thatcher. And yet import coal

We now INPORT steel, yet we have our OWN steel industry

Its like Osborne had sent millions of pounds overseas to create future footballers. Yet wont invest in British ground roots football

I just don't understand what is wrong with this government

[nomadking]

Closed originally under LABOUR, reopened and given another chance in 2011 under .........guess who.
From June 2011

An extra 300 jobs are to be created at the former Corus steel plant in Redcar when it reopens, it has been revealed.
The plant was mothballed in February 2010 when a contract fell through, with the loss of 1,600 jobs

The Conservatives did try.

Mr Beasley, said: "I cannot continue to draw on taxpayers' funds to keep the ovens operational when there is no realistic prospect that a buyer will be found.

[Osem]

What an awful government it is which can't deliver lower taxes, higher benefits/pensions, better services (e.g. nhs, education, housing), more UK jobs (even when they're completely uncompetitive as these would clearly be right now) and lower prices/inflation all at the same time. I can see why he's appalled too because it's not like anything like this happened under his party of choice is it. If it had he'd be struggling to understand what's wrong with them for sure...

I feel very sorry for those who're losing their jobs but we live in a world in which those who can't compete ultimately fail and no government can carry on writing out cheques to keep people producing stuff nobody wants or is prepared to buy because they can get it much cheaper elsewhere. The best we can hope for is to find alternative employment for the workers and the chance, albeit highly remote, that market conditions might one day make production viable again. I don't see that happening any time soon due to the massive investment that would require.

[MalteseFalcon]

CF wouldn't be the same without Arthur bashing the Tories at every chance though.

This UK industry was owned by a Thai company which bought it from an Indian company.

[Arthurgray50@blu]

I only bash the Tories because they do not care about the British worker. I am proud that l have worked all my life, though Labour and Tory governments.

But for me the Tories have ripped up the British Industry as we know it. Under Thatcher she ruined the Coal Industry, The steel Industry has been ruined by lack of investment by the governments. what next. We cannot ruin the car industry. As most are owned by foreign companies.

Its no good the government investing in training - l have been on there training courses, my god. The training that l had was that bad, then l would be dead before l landed a job

Was it the training, the trainer, or the trainee?

btw, in 1964, there were 545 coal mines in the UK, reducing to 219 by 1979 - who was in power for most of that time?

290 mines closed under Harold Wilson, versus 160 under Margaret Thatcher....

[heero_yuy]

Emulating the failure that was British Steel that at its worst was costing the taxpayer £3 million a DAY! is not the answer in a world overflowing with cheap Chinese steel products.

There's little prospect that the plant could have become profitable in the immediate future so the best thing to do is to close it and sort out new jobs for the redundant staff.

[rhyds]

It might be a good idea to remember which party's ex leader and ex environment minister brought forward the 2008 Climate Change act, making UK production of almost any energy intensive goods almost uneconomic.

Also, which party refused Anglesey Aluminium an energy price contract in 2008/9 (AA was probably the only grid connected aluminium plant, heavily dependent on a local nuclear power station)? Leading to the closure of the whole site?

Starts with an L...

[Osem]

Originally Posted by rhyds

It might be a good idea to remember which party's ex leader and ex environment minister brought forward the 2008 Climate Change act, making UK production of almost any energy intensive goods almost uneconomic.

Also, which party refused Anglesey Aluminium an energy price contract in 2008/9 (AA was probably the only grid connected aluminium plant, heavily dependent on a local nuclear power station)? Leading to the closure of the whole site?

Starts with an L...

Well I dare say it seemed like a good idea at the time and who could possibly have thought jobs would be lost as a direct result?

Anyway none of that matters because it wasn't evil Tories who did it so we'll skirt around that one...

[Arthurgray50@blu]

The Government must do more to protect jobs - simple

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

The Government must do more to protect jobs - simple

No it's far from simple which is why all governments have faced such problems and always will, in spite of your refusal to ever accept that fact. Throwing away millions of pounds of taxpayers money into an enterprise which isn't viable isn't going to protect jobs in the long run. All that happens when you do that is that other people wind up paying the price one way or another (because they become uncompetitive, have to raise their prices etc. or taxes have to rise) then people like you start complaining about that too. BL was a classic example of the same thing - countless millions wasted in order to produce cars that, for the most part were pretty poor and too few people wanted. In your world I take it they'd still be doing so in order to keep their workforce employed at the taxpayer's expense and you'd be delighted to be forced to buy their cars despite them being an inferior/higher priced product than their competition's.

It seems you want lower prices and the benefits of market competition and choice when it suits but then complain when that same market competition causes unviable businesses to fold.

[rhyds]

As Osem says, subsidising failing companies is simply not sustainable long term.

You complain that we've closed mines and are importing coal, the simple reason for that is it costs more to dig the coal out of the ground than it does to import it, because British mines are old, deep mines that are expensive to operate. Steelmaking is going through the same issues. It simply costs too much to make steel in the UK.

One major factor in UK heavy industry is that while other nations were busy investing in modernisation of their coal and steel industries, the UK suffered from terrible industrial relations caused equally by short-sighted unions with their "a steelworks is there to create jobs, not make money" mentality. For example, the shipbuilders unions wouldn't allow shipyards to invest in more efficient rolling mills because they were operated by one man, when the older ones took three. So of course UK shipbuilding lost ground to foreign competition.

There is also blame to be had for inept management who knew that the government would bail them out when it all came crashing down, and, when amalgamation and nationalisation came about, spent more time squabbling internally than looking to see what the competition were doing better (or worse) than they were.

[Arthurgray50@blu]

Look at it this way.

The British Government send BILLIONS of pounds of OUR money abroad. Yet cannot afford to support British Industry, or the workforce.
That makes me laugh

It's about sustainability, Arthur - are you saying that your money (the tax-payer) should be used to support a foreign company (SSI) who cannot run a money-making business?