Corus staff are facing a 10 per cent cut in pay in order to save their jobs.

Union leaders representing thousands of steel workers were talking with bosses at the company, about an across-the-board pay cut.

It is reported that a 10 per cent reduction was being negotiated, although both unions and bosses say no figures have yet been agreed.

Steelmaker Corus, which employs more than 1,000 of its 25,000 UK workers at sites across the Black Country, cut 400 jobs from its distribution business last month – 100 of them in the Black Country.

Despite cuts over recent years that have almost halved Corus’s workforce in the Black Country. It still runs sites in Wednesfield, Wombourne, Halesowen, Brierley Hill, Kingswinford, Great Bridge, West Bromwich, Walsall, Wednesbury and Oldbury.

Now owned by Indian industrial giant Tata Group, Corus has been badly hit by the collapse in demand for steel worldwide as a result of the slowdown in car production and construction work.

But Tata has stated it wants to cut £350 million from Corus’s costs as well as reducing production by 30 per cent. And fears have been raised for the future of the Llanwern steel plant which employs 1,000 people.