Corus workers consider industrial action

Corus's Llanwern plant could face disruption

Steelworkers at the Llanwern plant in south Wales look set to vote on industrial action.

The main steel union the ISTC said it had received requests for strike ballots from two branches at the giant works.

Corus announced it was 3,000 jobs at plants in Wales on 1 February - 1,300 at Llanwern.

Sir Brian Moffat: Announced sweeping cuts

But workers at other sites round are waiting to see the company's response to the the union's rescue proposals before planning their next move.

Steel giant Corus revealed heavy losses of £1.15bn when it published its annual results last Thursday.

After a year in which the company suffered because of the strength of the pound against the euro, many industrial experts have been speculating that the news will not be good.

The Anglo-Dutch firm earlier this year announced plans to axe 6,000 steel jobs - with 3,000 in Wales alone.

Difficult times

Trade union leaders and politicians are still trying to persuade the company to change its mind - but the future looks bleak for the workers.

Corus - formerly British Steel - has lived through difficult times in the past year.

At one stage it was losing more than £1m a day.

Although the pound's performance against the euro has showed signs of improvement lately, Corus has made clear that it is still not in a position to do a u-turn on the planned redundancies.

Corus shares are still priced about the same as when the restructuring was announced two years ago.

The company has been constantly under attack since revealing its major job-cutting programme earlier this year.

On Wednesday, a committee of MPs criticised it for poor management and failing to involve the government in key talks over job cuts.

In their report on the steel crisis, the MPs concluded that little could have been done by the government to prevent thousands of job losses in Wales and the UK.

But there was anger when the decision to axe the posts was announced without prior consultation with politicians.

Steel: The backbone of many Welsh towns

The root of the problems go back to the merger of British Steel and Hoogovens said the Trade and Industry committee report.

The weak euro was described by MPs as only a "short term" problem for Corus and they said "a large well-managed company could have been expected to weather" the fluctuations.

The select committee said that it "regretted" Corus had not fully briefed ministers initially in December when plans for huge cutbacks were first being drawn up.

Corus then announced in February that it was cutting more jobs and scaling back production in a move which will see Ebbw Vale close and steel production at Llanwern, near Newport, come to an end after 35 years.