Ministers agree to meet unions on steel strike

A conciliatory gesture from the Government toward the main steel trade unions yesterday has opened new avenues for settlement of their 16-day strike.

Sir Keith Joseph, the Industry Secretary, and Mr. James Prior, the Employment Secretary, have been asked by Mrs. Margaret Thatcher to meet leaders of the two unions principally involved in the strike, possibly as early as Monday.

Because the request for a the meeting came from the unions. Government departments stressed last night that Mrs. Thatcher's reply did not constitute an initiative or an intervention.

But the biggest union, the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, described the move as “a step in the right direction.”

This might correct what the ISTC claims is Ministerial bias in favour of BSC, and give the unions their first chance to explain their case. The invitation has been accepted.

While the Government was attempting to cool the political temperature, BSC raised it by announcing that it wanted the unions to accept 11,337 redundancies by August at Port Talbot and Llanwern, the two modern strip steel works in South Wales.

Although the least drastic of three options for South Wales considered by BSC, the decision did nothing to placate the unions, which with TUC backing have demanded that all closure plans be withdrawn for “full consultation.”

The TUC General Council will decide next week whether to set a deadline for national industrial action that would greatly extend the scope and seriousness of the present pay strike.

The Wales TUC has already threatened an indefinite general strike from March 10 in protest at job losses in steel, coal and on the railways.

Government spokesmen said that the Minister's meeting with Mr. Bill Sirs of the ISTC and Mr. Hector Smith of the National Union of Blastfurnace men would not necessarily lead to an interview with the Prime Minister. Both sides say that the meeting will not involve direct negotiations.

But Mrs. Thatcher's letter to Mr. Sirs clearly suggests that she may see them subsequently.

She wrote: “I know that you will understand that if I meet you and Mr. Smith. I should have to extend a similar courtesy to Sir Charles Villiers and Mr. Scholey [chairman and chief executive of BSC] with whom, contrary to reports in today's newspapers. I have not at any time discussed the dispute.”

Though the meeting was strenuously played down by officials as a matter of courtesy in reply to a request, it gives the Government a line to the unions for the first time in the dispute.

It also suggests that Mrs. Thatcher has seized an opportunity to ward off Parliamentary criticism that she was taking her “non—interventionist” stance too far.

In spite of the strike the board of British Steel decided yesterday to insist upon agreement with the unions on its South Wales redundancy plan being reached by the end of March.

The cuts involve each works being run down to only 40 per cent of its designed output. The corporation makes no secret, however, of its determination to close one of the two works entirely if agreement on the so-called “slimline” operation is not reached.

After a Board meeting statements issued in London and Cardiff said: “If practices and performance achieved did not justify this combined operation, then BSC would inevitably be faced with the necessity of a total works closure.”

The cuts are the most drastic so far proposed by BSC in its efforts to regain viability.

Each of the two works has a theoretical annual production capacity of 2.5m to 3m tonnes. The intention is to bring down production to a combined 2.75m tonnes a year by the two works.

Sir Charles Villiers said yesterday that the cuts were the best option for the corporation. They would minimise redundancies and not involve mothballing plant.

The unions are taking legal advice with a view possibly to seeking an injunction against BSC to stop the closures, on the grounds that BSC is in breach of its consultative obligations under the Iron and Steel Act.

Mr. Bob Scholey, chief executive and deputy chairman of BSC, wrote to the TUC yesterday saying that British Steel did not believe the closures proposals fell within the Act.

Philip Rawstorne writes: Sir Keith Joseph told the Commons the meeting with union leaders would be “not in any way for negotiation—that is for BSC and the unions.”

He rejected any idea of increased subsidies.

“It would be neither kind nor sensible. It would be another step on the downward path. Other managements and unions would go on ignoring economic reality.

“That is what this strike is about—economic reality.”

It was a classic example of the “British disease … of demanding something for nothing.”