Corus closure could see area flourish

May 10 2009 by Paul Loraine, Sunday Sun

Backing the cause of the workers

THE Sunday Sun has always been at the forefront of fighting the workers’ corner in the face of possible redundancies at Corus.

In 2001, former steel boss Sir Brian Moffat took an axe to more than 6000 jobs across the country and more than 1000 workers at the Corus sites in Teesside faced bleak futures.

After Sir Brian refused to meet MPs to discuss a bail-out package for the under-threat plant, the Sunday Sun believed he had a lot of questions to answer.

So we gave him the chance to field those queries by publishing his home phone number and inviting Corus workers to call him direct.

The bold move came after there had been a complete lack of consultation over the huge number of redundancies.

Furious union chiefs were kept in the dark and then Trade and Industry Secretary Stephen Byers said he only discovered the plans on the morning they were announced.

Sir Brian’s office also cancelled a meeting with a 12-strong delegation, including North MPs, because he did not have space in his diary.

The Sunday Sun then launched a campaign to persuade Tony Blair to strip Sir Brian of his knighthood.

Ironically, Moffat was awarded his gong for services to industry in 1996.

A group of 53 MPs put a motion to the House of Commons demanding that he should lose the right to be called sir.

And we even printed special campaign T-shirts demanding that Moffat be stripped of the award.

In May 2001, almost 1700 North East steel workers were awarded £2500 each after it was confirmed their jobs would be axed.

Hand-outs were awarded to about 12,000 Corus workers as part of a multi-million pound national emergency package unveiled by the Government.