Keep on talking plea
May 29 2009 by Karen Faughey, Evening Gazette
A TEESSIDE MP is urging the chief executive of Corus to meet with her as the fight to save 2,000 local jobs continues.
MP for Redcar Vera Baird has today written to Corus’ chief executive officer Kirby Adams as part of the efforts to re-open talks with the Italian steel boss Antonio Marcegaglia.
Marcegaglia is part of the consortium which earlier this month walked away from a take-off agreement with Teesside Cast Products, putting thousands of jobs at risk.
The firm is also leading a bid to buy a controlling stake in the plant - but has yet to discuss its position with Corus.
Ms Baird visited Mr Marcegaglia in Italy last Friday and said she was buoyed by his willingness to speak with Corus.
Ms Baird said: “Since Kirby Adams expressed himself to be ‘delighted’ that I was going to Italy to talk with the consortium, I am confident that he will be constructive.”
But she warned however that a meeting between the two parties may take some time to organise.
“It’s never going to happen immediately,” she said. “But we are getting closer.”
Today TCP’s managing director Jon Bolton said the company was “very open to discuss commercial or other opportunities with Marcegaglia or other parties.”
A memorandum of understanding with Marcegaglia to buy the TCP plant remains in place until the end of June.
Some good news for the plant also emerged today as Mr Bolton said he had managed to stretch the order book at the plant by almost another week, to June 28.
“We continue to recruit orders,” he said. “These are internal orders from Corus but it means production has been extended.”
The extra production comes after last week’s news that the order book had been extended to June 22.
Geoff Waterfield, chairman of the Teesside works multi-union committee which represents TCP staff along with colleagues in other Corus Long Products divisions at Redcar, said: “Anybody who is trying to help us is fantastic news. Vera Baird is putting a lot of hard work in to try and help the situation on Teesside.”
Today Nick Brown MP, Minister for the North-east, was also due to visit the Redcar site. And Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland MP Ashok Kumar today vowed to step up liaison with both Corus and its owner, Tata Steel.
Mr Kumar hopes to arrange a meeting with Tata Steel in the near future. “When that happens I will want to assure them of the long life in front of the TCP operation, its record of past success and my belief that it can continue to deliver for the future.”
