Steel workers meet with ministers

The Redcar plant employs 2,000 people

The fight to save steelworking jobs has been taken to the Labour Party conference in Brighton.

The future of the Corus-owned Teesside Cast Products factory in Redcar is in doubt after an international consortium pulled out of a deal to buy its steel.

Union leaders and a delegation of workers met government ministers at a fringe meeting as part of a campaign to safeguard the 2,000 jobs under threat.

Corus says it is trying to find a buyer for the plant.

Local MP Vera Baird, business minister Pat McFadden and Nick Brown, minister for the north east, attended the meeting on Wednesday evening.

Market 'blip'

Bob Bolam, regional organiser for the Unite Union said it had gone "really, really well".

He said: "People in the audience gave Pat McFadden a good message to take back to Gordon Brown and Lord Mandelson that the whole of Teesside expects the government to support Corus on Teesside.

"We need to ensure that we get over this blip in the market, so when we come out of the other side there will still be a sustainable steel industry left in Britain."

He added: "Our campaign isn't dead, it's carrying on."