Mittal Steel South Africa

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Iscor Limited, originally a parastatal organization, the company was founded in 1928 and was first listed in 1989. Currently it is taken over by Mittal.

The company created by an act of Parliament to accomplish two things: to manufacture cheap steel (to help encourage industrialization) and to employ whites. The company did a reasonably good job of the first task, although it became less efficient in the 1970s as it responded less to market pressures than to the political directives of Afrikaner nationalists. The company never ran only with white workers, half of the workforce was black. But whites did hold all the skilled jobs; whites on average earned six times the pay of blacks. The company heavily subsidized the housing for whites; blacks had to live in prison-like "hostels".

Whites at Iscor enjoyed a relatively privileged existence. After a series of strikes in the 1930s and 1940s, the company provided workers with cheap housing, generous pensions and health insurance. After forty years of work, whites retired with 100% of their pay, with annual adjustments for inflation. In essence, this was white socialism.

Iscor has become a primary iron and steel producer, with works at Pretoria, Vanderbijlpark, Newcastle, South Africa, Durban, Vereeniging and Kuils River. Iscor's mining business has been unbundled into a resource focused company, Kumba Resources.

Iscor is closing or mothballing the Pretoria steelworks and linked Corex plant. Shutting the 480,000 t/year steel slabs arc furnace operation in Pretoria will lead to about 1000 payoffs at a cost of about R70m in severance packages. The 360,000 t/year Corex plant could carry on if pig iron exports prove feasible.