Steel men demand meeting with PM

SW UTT president Christopher Henry said the union has two potential investors — experienced firms from Canada and the US — with proposals to restart the plant seeking new opportunities, created by the widening of the Panama Canal (to build shipping containers) and the opening of the Cuban market.

Henry related that two SWUTT officers met Rowley in April and he promised to champion their proposal if it is workable.

Since submitting their formal proposal to him on September 28, the SWUTT received a letter of acknowledgment but no agreement from the PM to meet again. “We didn’t ask the Government for one red cent,” Henry said. “We told him it is workable in terms of our investors.” Alleging that ArcelorMittal had left its sacked staff without any severance pay by use of legal loopholes, he said, “The Prime Minister and the Government have not given this situation the attention it deserves.” He spelt out the plight of the 2,000 people now without jobs since the firm’s closure.

“Children have had to change schools because there is no money.

The daughter of one of our members had to stop studying for her doctor’s degree. Six of our members have lost their homes. Each day that goes by it gets worse,” Henty said.

He was worried that ArcelorMittal might be trying to buy back the plant under a different name, saying the firm knows lawyers who now hold high office.

“On the 23rd of this month the liquidator will give an opportunity for investors to look at the plant. In December the bids will be open, and we’ll know which investor was chosen.” He alleged that the Government is treating them like second-class citizens.

Henry disliked the alleged scepticism shown by Finance Minister Colm Imbert, who had allegedly asked how a union could find investors, and had demanded to know the identity of the investors.

Alleging that the Government has a seeming bias in the class of people it wants to deal with, Henry said, “We are not dunces.

We say the plant is still viable.” He said the plant had been earning revenues of US$25 million a month. The SWUTT, in its formal proposal, wants the Government to give it concessions for the supply of gas, electricity and water, tariffs to protect TT-made steel, and a committee to assess their proposal.

Asked about China’s firing of one million steel workers as an indication of a low demand for steel during this economic lull, Henry admitted that while China will land steel on any port for US$300 a tonne, TT’s cost to produce steel is US$420 a tonne. However, he said that TT beats China by making a higher quality of steel, and that while the Chinese Government hugely subsidises the cost of production, this subsidy has now reached its limit of sustainability.

“They’ve been selling steel to themselves, to build cities for nobody to live in. This could no longer continue,” he said.