Tata To Decide Fate Of Uk Steelworks

[mikey4444]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35913482

Fingers crossed today for all our remaining steel workers !

[Islay]

Port Talbot is losing a million pounds a day!!

[youngmafbog]

Steel workers in many countries have an uncertain future.

Very difficult to see how this will end well.

[ToraToraTora]

the problem is the Tiddlys have a gazillion people making stuff on a shilling a week, no one can compete with that.

[Baldric]

Now let's have a quick think about this, both India and China produce loads of Steel a lot cheaper than we can make it.
The decision on the future of our Steelworks is being made in India.
Doesn't look good, does it?

[ToraToraTora]

Inevitable balders, people will buy the cheapest they can right through to the consumer.

[Sycamore3House]

The workforce making this steel cheaper than in the UK will not be on a final salary pension or any pension (probably) they will not get enhanced pay for weekends/night shift/or bank holidays.

[mikey4444]

I am often referred to on AB as "anti-British" entirely erroneously.

But here we have a battle between Brits and foreign workers, and what do the
the Usual Suspects do, but side with the foreigners !

[tonyav]

It looks like Tata intend to sell it's entire UK steel operation.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/live-updates-fears-grow-tata-11105253

[ToraToraTora]

Who's siding with the foriegners? Just pointing out the economic facts Mikey, if your union buddies hadn't made British workers to much agro and too expensive this sort of thing would not happen. I suppose you expect the government to renationalise, subsidise and introduce protectionism as in the Red's glory days eh?

[Sycamore3House]

There is no battle the British workers know deep down that they cannot compete. No one is siding with anyone it is called economics. If you have a business that does not make profit then there is no business.

[Quizproquo]

Too expensive ToraToraTora? Based on whose standards?
Do you really want our manual workers to live on Chinese wages? A communist regime? As for India, yes they produce the best brains, but only for the highest caste and they only start really earning when they leave the country, for instance when they come here, which is bad right?
I think you're arguing against for the sake of it. If our government really did try to do that to "honest hard-working British people" you'd be one of the first to complain, especially if it took the cream off your obviously superior earnings.
Seriously...

[Baldric]

No one is siding with the foreigners, but it's a fact that no one can afford to subsidise a non profit making business especially one that is losing £1M a day, wouldn't take you long to start you complaining about that would it?

[stuey]

Slightly, but not much, off topic, I was repairing a vintage Rolstar table-top cigarette lighter today. On the underside of it was proudly stamped "Made In England". When was the last time you saw that?...Obviously, I could say the same thing about something stamped "Made In Canada".

[Quizproquo]

ToraToraTora is blaming the 1970s and 80s long gone unions Baldric, so in that respect yes, they are siding with the foreigners.
How do you suggest a free western nation competes with a totalitarian state where workers are forced into their roles and are underpaid and undernourished?
How high would you build your ivory tower on that secure pension, because believe me, under that kind of regime, even that would not be safe and people like ToraToraTora would not have their cushy safety net. Their kind of rhetoric makes no sense.
If Tata is losing that much then yes, it should close and we should look for a different and better revenue source, but to suggest that we compete by devaluing our workforce is wrong on so many levels I don't even know where to start.

[Zacs-Master]

But that would be Socialism in action Balders. As advocated by Mikey's beloved Labour Party leader. What a dilema!

[Zacs-Master]

Qpq, I don't think Tora is or has suggested devaluing our workforce today. I think he's saying they devalued themselves through the unions, many years ago. Even if they hadn't, our standard of living and average annual wages would have no way of competing with China or India. It's a sad fact but the world is changing rapidly and manual intense industries will suffer.

[Quizproquo]

I agree Zac that even without the unions, we would have not been able to compete, so to bring them up as a reason for the decline in manufacturing is pointless and facile and does no credit to debate.
We have become a service nation and that is sad. We should still be encouraging science based education and please bring back the polytechnic kind of academy or school where non-academics can learn a genuine skill. Woodworking and mechanics are still required and always will be. At least that way we can compete in some way.
Right now we only focus on academia, which is no good for an economy like ours. If the best brains leave, then it's our fault. We made them pay for their education so they can take it where they want.
If we don't want that to happen we have to provide options and funding.

[ToraToraTora]

8th in the world at manufacturing is not too shabby QPQ:
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0ahUKEwiL7qLI9ObLAhUHORoKHejzDQsQFgg_MAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.parliament.uk%2Fbriefing-papers%2FSN05809.pdf&usg=AFQjCNEfBpdMag2mE9iNecRs9opnbp92eQ&;sig2=ImBMSWMNw4FtkjsV39QtgQ&bvm=bv.117868183,d.d2s&cad=rja
We do make quite a lot of things still.

[Quizproquo]

4th biggest army in the world too ToraToraTora but it's a real big drop off after that. Global positioning in this respect is not an accurate portrayal of how the country is going to progress.
We need to decide and invest in our future path.
All governments lately have been so preoccupied with staying in power and feeding their frindes that they have had no interest in what's good for Britain. Why are Polish plumbers taking over? We have no English plumbers, bricklayers. panel beaters, mechanics, mechanical engineers. Why? Because that is not the path children have been led down at school and kids who could whack a plumbing system in in seconds but who are not able to process English History of the Tudors or some other such academic endeavour are neglected. We fail our citizens then blame them for the results.

[Svejk]

Strange that mikey, who was/is a cheerleader for mass immigration, should care about jobs being exported. After all, they're two sides of the same coin.