Corus staff set for windfall after Tata takeover
Amid concerns of job cuts, thousands of Corus steel workers are in line for a windfall of around 5,000 pounds each from the 4.3 billion pound sale of the Anglo-Dutch company to India’s Tata Steel, media reports said today.
Many Corus workers, including hundreds of the company’s Port Talbot plant in south Wales, took advantage of the share ownership scheme, buying up to 150 pound worth of shares a month with a "no lose" guarantee, the Sunday Telegraph reported. Some bought shares as low as 19 pence each.
However, the prospect of a payout was not enough to ease concerns of job cuts among the company’s 3,000 workers at Port Talbot where steel has been produced since 1920, the report said.
Gareth Mills, who has contracted for Corus for seven years, said: "We are all very worried, there are lots of rumours going around. As a contractor you are out first. The Indians can get the raw materials cheaper, there would be no point to keeping the heavy end open."
The management of the two companies have stressed that there were no short-term plans to cut jobs among Corus’ 47,000-strong workforce in Britain and the Netherlands or relocate plants.
Jim Leng, the chairman who will become deputy chairman of Tata Steel, insisted that it was "the right deal". He said: "We didn’t cook this deal up. It wasn’t microwaved. This was like an Indian curry where you’ve got to marinate the ingredients for a long time."
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