“Just Transition”: A Promise of Hope or a Slogan for Managed Decline?

The promise of a “just transition” is at the heart of the government’s new steel strategy, but workers at Scunthorpe are “cautious,” fearing it’s a slogan for managed decline. As Peter Kyle backs a move to electric arc furnaces (EAFs), the 2,500 job losses at Port Talbot loom as a chilling example of what “transition” can mean.
Alasdair McDiarmid of the Community union “welcomed the government’s firm commitment to a just transition,” but this welcome is conditional. The union is trying to hold the government to the ideal of the phrase: that no worker will be left behind, and that communities will be protected.
The government’s actions, however, are being driven by other forces. The “slew of crises” in the global market, the “carbon-heavy” nature of the blast furnaces, and the UK’s net-zero targets are all pushing for the EAF switch, regardless of the job count.
The union’s additional demand—to “maintain primary steelmaking capacity”—is a desperate attempt to prevent the transition from happening in its most brutal form. By saving the blast furnace’s function (via a hydrogen DRI plant), they hope to save the jobs.
The government’s depleted £2.5bn steel fund makes this difficult. A “just transition” with mass job protection and investment in new, “financially dubious” tech is expensive. The December strategy will reveal if “just transition” is a real plan, or just a comforting phrase.