A TUMULTUOUS 12 UNCERTAINTY FOR
“TERRIBLE”, “like a rollercoaster” and “12 months of limbo” – those are just some of the words used to describe the past year by Tata Steel staff and Port Talbot residents.
In January 2016 the UK steel industry was rocked by terrifying reports of mass redundancies at the steelworks, with Wales bearing the brunt of the cuts.
The livelihoods of the whole workforce were threatened by the crisis, along with the livelihoods of people throughout the town.
While there are hopes that 2017 will be a better year for the steelworks and for Port Talbot, uncertainty still lingers in the air of the town, with people still worried about their futures.
Kate Jauncey, 49, spares engineer in the Cold Mill section of Tata Steel, said others have described the last year as a rollercoaster, although she wouldn’t.
She added: “(Rollercoasters) are quite fun and this has not been fun by any stretch of the imagination.
“The word that would sum it up for me is exhausting. It was one shock announcement to another.
“The initial one was a year ago with the job losses we had and we had a couple of months then to un- derstand what that meant.”
She added: “We were still trying to come to terms with that and then there was the huge shock an- nouncement that the steelworks were up for sale, which we were not expecting.”
Kate, from Wick, who is the steelworks representative for the Steel Industry Managers’ Association, said: “There was no suggestion that our future was at risk.”
In December, Tata Steel and the unions agreed a package of proposals that would see the company invest £1bn in its UK steel sites over the next 10 years and keep the blast furnaces at Port Talbot operational until 2021.
The deal was conditional on the British Steel Pension Scheme being closed and replaced with a defined contribution scheme, and also on productivity and efficiency gains at Tata sites. Steel workers will vote on the proposals later in the year.
Kate said: “I was on holiday when the sale was being pulled. They changed their minds about it.
“Every time we woke up there was something different. We were just trying to react and deal with that while still making steel and making sure we were all safe.
“To have such a turnaround in such a short space of time is incredible.
“We’re here a year later and we still don’t know what’s fully happening. We seem to be in a better position.”
Tracey Lewis is owner of Ferrari’s Café in Port Talbot and her husband has worked at the steelworks for 28 years.
She said the last year had been “terrible” and “chronic” at times, with everyone kept hanging on in confusion.
Tracey said: “At the end of November when it was said money was going to be put into the works and that they would try and keep it open for the next 10 years, business got better.
“But everybody is in two minds about what they’re going to do.
“You can deal with a couple of months of uncertainty but when it goes on you think ‘is it going to end?’ Everyone is still afraid to do this and that just in case they don’t have enough money next month or year.”
Describing herself as an optimist, Tracey hopes everything will be OK when the pension vote has concluded.
Billy Fleming, owner of Afan Carpets, said it was “fantastic news” when it was announced that Tata would invest in the Port Talbot steelworks.
But he has reservations about the way the company went about things.