‘We’ve got to fight for our livelihoods’: Port Talbot’s uncertain future as the cost of going green hits home
“Workers united, will never be defeated!” a man shouts into a loud hailer. He is part of a crowd marching through the streets of Manchester in a May Day parade, organised by some of Britain’s biggest trade unions.
The sun is shining and there’s a festival atmosphere, as his fellow marchers hold aloft placards about workers’ rights and fair pay.
Among the marchers is Jason Wyatt, a steelworker from South Wales. He is here to shine a spotlight on what’s happening in his hometown of Port Talbot, where several thousand of his colleagues are facing redundancy.
There’s applause as Jason takes to the stage.
Jason Wyatt speaks during the May Day parade
“They are trying to destroy the livelihoods of 2,800 people,” he says. “Port Talbot is the last bastion of heavy industry in South Wales. We have to fight.”
There has been a steelworks in Port Talbot, which sits on the south coast of Wales, for 125 years.
These days the large, sprawling site is owned by Tata Steel, an Indian company which employs around half of its 8,000 workforce in Port Talbot.
The local economy is heavily reliant on the manufacturing sector, which provides approximately a fifth of jobs in the area, according to Welsh government figures.
But the British steel industry has struggled to remain competitive in a fierce global market, and that means uncertain futures for communities like Port Talbot.
In 2019, the UK produced seven million tonnes of steel, behind seven EU nations – including Germany’s 40 million tonnes. Meanwhile, China produced 996 million tonnes.
Steelworks also cost huge amounts to run because they use massive amounts of energy.
The Port Talbot plant has, by far, the biggest bill and uses as much electricity, for example, as the whole of the city of Swansea a few miles along the motorway.
The sums do not add up, says Tata Steel. It claims its UK business loses £1m a day.
The other huge issue facing the company, and its Port Talbot plant, is how polluting it is. The steelworks is the single biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in Britain.
And Tata thinks that by moving away from its existing coal-powered blast furnace to a greener way of making steel – using scrap metal as fuel – it could reduce the UK’s entire carbon emissions by around 1.5 per cent.
The UK government has agreed to pay Tata £500m towards the building of a new electric arc furnace.
But to do that, Tata says it needs to shut down the two remaining blast furnaces, resulting in the loss of 2,800 jobs.
The drive to go green is costing jobs in Port Talbot. And that’s a dilemma that companies across the UK – and around the world – are facing.
“Tata are asking people to save the business with a forfeit in their jobs. It’s awful,” says Jason, who has worked at the Port Talbot plant for 25 years.
It is estimated that around 1.3 million workers in carbon-intensive so-called “brown” jobs will need to adapt to cleaner technologies and processes, according to the Resolution Foundation think tank.
But the numbers on the cost of going green are disputed.
The TUC estimates that 800,000 manufacturing and supply chain jobs could be axed without support from the government.
While the Climate Change Committee, an independent body set up by the government in 2008, says anywhere between 8,000 and 75,000 jobs could go in the transition.
The government says the UK is the first major economy to halve its emissions – and is leading the way in the transformation of the energy industry, with over 80,000 green jobs currently supported or in the pipeline since 2020.
“Much of the transferable expertise from industries such as steelworks and oil and gas will be crucial for the transition to net zero,” a government spokesperson said.
“And our Green Jobs Plan will ensure we have the sufficient skills to tackle emerging and future workforce demands across the economy.”
Inside the plant, it’s hot and the smell of sulphur hangs in the air, a by-product of the manufacturing process. Peter Quinn is leading Tata’s move to green steel.
He says the idea that its arc furnace could be up and running in four years is still “approximate” and that consultations with stakeholders, including the workers, would need to be completed first.
The unions and local politicians have called on Tata to keep one blast furnace operational while the new one is built. But Tata says that is not cost-effective.
Quinn says the only other option is abandoning steelmaking in Port Talbot altogether.
Jason thinks Tata should opt for a more gradual transition that would avoid the need to make redundancies.
“We’re not opposing the green steel agenda,” he says. “What we’re opposing is the way in which we’re transitioning.”
This shift is already impacting his family. His son, Tyler, is 19 and had hoped to apply for an apprenticeship at Tata.
“I’m at a point in my life where I need to start securing my future, buy a house and settle somewhere,” says Tyler. “But it’s too risky now to think that there are opportunities [at Tata] for me.”
Jason Wyatt on the beach with his family
As Jason and his family take a windswept walk on the town’s beach with their dogs, their gaze is drawn towards the harbour where the cranes used to unload iron ore from around the world, dominate the view.
But out to sea, hope could be on the horizon. There are plans for a huge wind farm in the Celtic Sea with enough wind turbines to power four million homes.
And Tata hopes it can make the football pitch-sized platforms that the turbines will sit on.
But this potential new chapter in the story of Britain’s journey to a greener economy still seems too far away for the steelworkers.
Ashley Curnow, a divisional manager for Associated British Ports in Wales, hopes the towns along the shore like Port Talbot will benefit from the new development.
“I understand there’s an immense amount of worry at the moment throughout the community, and I think our role in this project is to deliver the project, as soon as we can and bring those job opportunities forward.”
At home, Jason and his family reflect on what the future might hold.
His wife, Stacey, thinks Tata is treating its workers unfairly.
“I think it’s wrong what Tata Steel are doing to their workers. They don’t really care about how it’s going to affect people and their families.”
“It’s a hard time for all of us,” Jason adds. “We’ve got to fight to protect our livelihoods”.
Donald Trump has announced that most goods imported from Mexico are to be exempt from his trade tariff regime for at least four weeks, just days after the charges were imposed.
He confirmed the move following a phone call with his Mexican counterpart Claudia Sheinbaum and, according to his commerce secretary, was due to announce a similar concession to Canada later in the day.
“We are working hard, together, on the Border, both in terms of stopping Illegal Aliens from entering the United States and, likewise, stopping Fentanyl,” Mr Trump posted on Truth Social.
The latest climbdown by the US president came after he surprised financial markets on Wednesday by waiving tariffs against carmakers following pleas from motor industry bosses.
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The White House revealed then that parts due to flow into the US from Mexico and Canada as part of the manufacturing supply chain would not qualify for tariffs so long as they complied with an existing trade agreement struck between the three.
‘Rules of origin’ guidelines under the USMCA deal allow goods to move between the three countries tariff-free if they qualify with a designation that they were made in North America.
US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick told Sky’s US partner network CNBC that if the concession was extended to Canada, then more than half of usual cross border trade volumes would be exempt.
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Why are tariffs such a big deal?
He too signalled there were signs of progress in Mr Trump’s dispute with America’s closest trading partners, saying each had worked hard to make progress in tackling imports of Fentanyl – blamed for high crime and deaths in US communities.
But Mr Lutnick explained that, as things stand, the reprieve would only last until 2 April when the Trump administration plans to impose reciprocal tariffs – on top of the 25% charges that came into force on Tuesday.
The car industry believes that no products from Canada and Mexico are currently subject to tariffs as they comply with the USMCA deal agreed in 2020.
It should spare consumers extra costs of at least $4,000 on the purchase of a new vehicle, industry data showed.
While that could still change from 2 April, Mr Trump is under intense pressure to relax his tariff regime permanently amid a backlash from US firms and financial market investors who fear it is self defeating.
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A closely-watched forecast has even suggested that the threats of a trade war were enough to push the US economy into recession before Mr Trump took office.
The dollar has sunk in value and US government borrowing costs have risen on the back of the turmoil.
It is widely expected that the European Union will be next to face tariffs – possibly from 2 April – after Trump threatened action “very soon” just last week.
Commenting on the threat to the eurozone from such a move, the president of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde said on Thursday: “Just the threat of those tariff increases and potential retaliations are putting a brake on – on investment, on consumption decisions, on employment, hiring, all the rest of it.
While Mr Trump has not issued a specific threat against the UK, her counterpart at the Bank of England Andrew Bailey told a committee of MPs on Wednesday that the US should work “multi-laterally” rather than bilaterally to resolve its disputes.
Donald Trump is to exclude carmakers across North America from the pain of US tariffs levelled against Mexico and Canada, following apparent pressure from motor bosses.
The White House confirmed the concession was made after the president spoke to the bosses of Ford, General Motors and Stellantis in a call on Wednesday.
Each company has manufacturing operations and suppliers in Canada and Mexico.
There will be a tariff exemption of at least a month on vehicles made across the continent but only if a previous agreement on so-called ‘rules of origin’ is implemented in full.
It governs where a product is first sourced and where a tariff may apply during transit across borders.
“Reciprocal” tariffs are still planned from April, the president’s spokesman said.
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Manufacturers have complained of being worst affected by the imposition of 25% tariffs against both Canada and Mexico since Tuesday because flows of parts between the three countries can be hit by tariffs multiple times.
The complicated nature of their operations can mean a single component crosses a border more than once during the production process.
Such a big spike in costs from tariffs poses a big risk to sales as customers are asked to pay more to help compensate for the sanctions.
Automakers’ share prices have been among the worst hit since Mr Trump took office again in January.
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Why are tariffs such a big deal?
The car bosses, according to Reuters news agency sources, pledged additional US investment but wanted clarity on tariffs ahead.
Mr Trump urged them to shift their operations to the United States, according to a White House statement.
The tariff concession marked the first compromise on the trade issue since the president signalled, on Tuesday, that there would be no U-turns and only more tariffs after Canada said it would respond in kind.
There have been growing signs this week that corporate America is uneasy, at best, with the tariff policy against both Mexico and Canada
Those US neighbours, along with China, which is facing 20% tariffs, are the country’s three biggest trading partners.
The imposition of tariffs on all goods has been received badly by financial market investors, worried that US profitability is at risk.
One closely-watched forecast for US growth suggested that the threat of tariffs since Mr Trump’s election victory was confirmed had hammered activity and plunged the country into recession.
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There are mounting reports of boycotts against US goods in Mexico and Canada.
The nerves were publicly admitted by the boss of Jack Daniel’s maker Brown Forman, Lawson Whiting, on Wednesday when he described Canadian provinces taking American-made alcohol off shop shelves as “worse than a tariff”.
US stock market values are sharply down since the inauguration and the dollar has lost more than three cents against rivals including the euro and the pound just this week amid the tariff turmoil.
Such is the growing investor concern for the health of the US economy, the tariff implications have been partly blamed for a steep fall in oil prices.
Brent crude was trading at $68 a barrel earlier on Wednesday – its lowest level for more than three years.
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