UNION bosses hope some of the £80m settlement that Tata Steel received from a consortium which almost caused the collapse of the North-East steel industry will filter down to affected workers.

Teesside Cast Products (TCP) factory, then owned by Tata, was partially mothballed in February last year after the consortium pulled out halfway through a tenyear deal to take 78 per cent of the steel slab it produced until 2014 – blaming the global downturn.

The Northern Echo reported yesterday that the consortium, consisting of Marcegaglia, Dongkuk, Duferco and Ternium Procurement, agreed on Monday to pay £80m compensation following an earlier tribunal ruling.

Last night, Geoff Waterfield, the TCP multi-union chairman, called on the India-based company to compensate the people who suffered the brunt of the consortium’s actions.

He said: “It has been a tremendously stressful time for many people, especially for those who lost their jobs.

“For two years, many people didn’t know what was happening and some compensation would come in handy for the ones who have not managed to find a job.”

Despite efforts to keep TCP open while a buyer was sought, more than 1,000 jobs were lost after the plant partially closed.

But last August, Thai firm Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI) bought the plant in a £291m deal, which will see 800 jobs created on top of the existing 700 workforce.

Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland MP Tom Blenkinsop, a former steel industry union official, said: “In a sense, this is now history given that these plants were bought a year later by Thai company SSI for £300m and that steel production will now start up again later this year.

“However, the consortium’s decision led to two years of anguish for the workforce, their families and for our local communities.

It also led to a huge question mark being placed over the economic future of the whole of Teesside.

“On this basis, £80m is a mere pittance. It represents just a small – indeed a minuscule – portion of the annual turnover of those international steel giants that made up the consortium on which so many local hopes were focused.”