UK industrial towns offered not only well-paid jobs, but a whole culture. A radical alternative is desperately needed
Last week, Tata Steel in Port Talbot announced the immediate closure of its coke ovens. These ovens create the coke that ultimately powers the blast furnaces, which, as was announced in January, are due to be shut down. The decision by Tata to close the furnaces sent shock waves through the community. There are set to be 2,800 job losses – a huge blow for a small town that has already undergone significant cuts to its steel industry over the past decades. A final chapter in the decades-long deindustrialisation of the British economy appears to be coming to a close.
Plant closures are never only about the loss of work, but also the cultural and psychological effects on the people who are made unemployed, on families and communities. Steel provided well-paid, unionised and skilled employment, and created a working-class culture that gave the country Labour MPs, athletes, musicians, writers, artists and a sense of community and collective purpose. Port Talbot even gave the world the cinematic presence of Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins.
Keith Gildart is a former coalminer, and now a professor of labour and social history at the University of Wolverhampton
