Members of the Community and GMB unions, which represent over 6,000 Tata Steel employees in the UK, have voted in favour of strike action over Tata Steel proposals to close the longstanding company pension scheme.

At the time of publication, a third union UCATT held a ballot over the same period was yet to announce its results. A fourth union, Unite, representing 6,000 workers, will announce the results of its industrial action ballot on June 5. Eighty-eight per cent voted in favour of strike action on a 76 per cent turnout, Community said.

The unions are yet to lay out details of industrial action, which would have to take place within the next four weeks to be valid under Britain’s tough industrial relations regulations. Instead Community General Secretary Roy Rickhuss urged the company to return to the negotiating table for “meaningful” discussions. Senior Community executives are set to meet on Monday to discuss next steps. “We stand on the brink of the first national strike in the steel industry for over 30 years. This is not where we wanted to be but Tata now has an opportunity to end this dispute by removing the threat of scheme closure and discussing alternative measures to resolve the challenges faced by the scheme,” he said.

The results came as Tata Steel’s European head warned that the deficit under the current pension scheme could jeopardise the long-term future of the company’s UK operations if not tackled.

In an “open letter” on Friday, Karl Koehler, CEO and MD of Tata Steel Europe, said the company would work with unions and employees to address concerns about aspects of the proposed new scheme.

“I hope everyone agrees with one thing: that we have to change the pension scheme in order to deal with a shortfall as high as £2 billion which is not sustainable and which would damage the long-term prospects of our company in the UK,” he wrote. “We are still facing very difficult business conditions in the UK. Indeed our UK operations as a whole are still losing money and we will need further significant investments from Tata Steel if we are to build a sustainable business here,” he said. Announcing its fourth-quarter results earlier this month, Tata Steel reported a ₹4,951-crore write down largely relating to the long products division based in the UK.

Among employee issues Koehler pledged to address were the removal of the option to retire early at 60 (the UK official retirement age is 65), working physically demanding jobs beyond 60, and the removal of a benefit of the current scheme that gave some workers an additional year’s pension for every seven years served.

Tata Steel has over 17,000 staff in the UK, with a union membership of 12,000. Annual UK production capacity is around 11 million tonnes, just under a third of the global capacity.

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