By Kirsten Robb and Maggie Chapman
The mothballing of the Lanarkshire Tata Steel plants is a disaster for
communities already scarred by severe job losses in the 1980s and 1990s.
Almost all commentators see closure as the inevitable conclusion of the
move to mothball. It threatens to remove some of the few remaining
industrial jobs that give a living wage. It also threatens to remove the
opportunity for Scotland to benefit from the massive expansion of renewable
energy installation that we need to keep the lights on.
We should be making our wind turbines, our wave and tidal installations and
the structures on which to mount solar panels from the steel finished in
the plants Tata is closing. We should also use steel from these plants in
the houses, hospitals, schools, ships and railways we will build in the
coming years. Steel recycling, manufacture and finishing are fundamental
building block of any modern economy.
The crisis is caused by a number of factors. These have pushed up the price
of Scottish steel, or reduced the cost of imported steel. At the heart of
it is the flood of steel on the global market coming from China. The result
is that the spot price of steel is little over half what it was a year ago.
As the infrastructure bubble in China has deflated, so domestic demand for
steel has collapsed. Steel that is not required domestically in China is
being dumped on international markets at a cut price. This glut is
temporarily reducing prices.
The situation cannot continue. The capacity in the Chinese domestic market
will reduce, and the spot price will increase. The fire sale of Chinese
steel may destroy our domestic industry, and once it has done that we will
be obliged to import steel for our own use in renewables and other building
projects.
There is a way to save the livelihoods of those in Motherwell and
Cambuslang. Earlier this week, Central Scotland MSP and Scottish Green
Party member John Wilson commented that, if the UK Government can support
bankers and financial services through difficult times, it should be able
to support important business in Scotland too.
The Scottish Government has a national infrastructure plan that requires
substantial amounts of steel. If we are to generate the equivalent of our
electricity demand from renewables we will need massive amounts of steel.
The houses we must build to solve the housing crisis will need steel for
frames. This steel could be finished in Motherwell and Cambuslang. In fact,
it would be deeply foolish not to use the steel finished in these plants.
We must plan for our transition to a low-carbon economy to gear up our
people, skills and infrastructure in traditional industries such as steel,
energy generation and shipbuilding before more task forces are needed.
Last year the Scottish Green Party conference agreed a policy that would
allow workers a right to buy out their workplace. It would then be run as a
workers’ cooperative. This was a response to the Ineos crisis, where
billionaire tax exile Jim Ratcliffe held the workers at Grangemouth to
ransom: they could accept serious reductions in their terms and conditions,
or they could lose their jobs. The Scottish Government was similarly held
to ransom.
By giving workers a right to buy, and financing it using a national
investment bank, Scotland could protect the jobs and livelihoods of people
in the steel industry. We could have a not-for-profit steel sector. The
Scottish Government could go further and act as guarantor for the steel
finished in Motherwell and Cambuslang. By guaranteeing a price for
Scottish-finished steel we would benefit doubly from the infrastructure we
need to build. Not only will we get low carbon electricity, new schools and
more houses; we will also benefit from the jobs in steel finishing and all
the associated supply chain jobs.
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Once the Chinese steel industry adjusts its capacity to meet the demands of
the domestic market we will be left with our own steel industry. We will
not be subject to the vagaries of a market in which the price of steel has
rocketed and plummeted in the past 10 years. We will benefit from the jobs
associated with steel finishing, and we will no longer be subject to the
whims of billionaire tax exiles. The old economic orthodoxy has failed.
It’s time to create a new orthodoxy, based on cooperation.
Kirsten Robb is a Lanarkshire Green activist and an MSP candidate for
Central Scotland; Maggie Chapman is co-convener of the Scottish Greens and
an MSP candidate for North East Scotland.
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