Tata Steel announced on Friday, 28 June, that it had launched legal proceedings against the United Kingdom’s Unite Union to challenge the validity of the union’s ballot for strike action.

This legal action comes after around 1,500 workers of the company in Britain decided to start a strike from 8 July over the company’s plans to close two blast furnace and layoff approximately 2,800 jobs. 

Unite has announced a strike action, marking the first strike by British steel workers in 40 years. The strikes are set to occur at Tata’s Port Talbot and Llanwern sites in Wales.

A company’s spokesperson said,” In the coming days, if we cannot be certain that we are able to continue to safely and stably operate our assets through the period of strike action, we will not have any choice but to pause or stop heavy end operations (including both blast furnaces) on the Port Talbot site.”

Earlier in January, the company announced the closure of the blast furnace as a part of its plan to turn around its loss-making UK business by switching to a lower carbon electric arc furnace. This proposal has been backed by GBP 500 million ($632 million) of the UK government money. 

The company has also called on the union to withdraw the strike and consider its proposed deal with the government, which includes a comprehensive support package worth 4130 million for the affected employees, which also includes redundancy terms, community programs, skills training, etc.

The steel producer has already begun preparations to place equipment orders for the electric arc furnace by September 2202.