STEEL bosses have met with unions in a bid to ease growing tensions over pension changes.

Tata Steel says it has spoken to officials over potential amendments to the British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS).

The move has courted anger from unions, with Unite due to start balloting members next week on possible strike action.

Community, GMB, and Ucatt have already sent out papers, and, if staff walk out, they will join the first national dispute in more than 30 years.

The BSPS had 143,000 members as of late last year, with assets of about £13.6bn.

Tata, which supports more than a thousand Teesside jobs and operates the Teesside Beam Mill, near Redcar, and a special profiles plant, in Skinningrove, east Cleveland, says it has made an offer to the unions and is still open for talks.

Referring to its latest meeting, a spokesman said it had delivered feedback from its consultation process, which is due to run until Friday, May 29.

He said workers had a number of concerns, including the potential impact on people close to 60 from the immediate removal of early retirement enhancements.

He added: “The company has confirmed it is minded to mitigate these potential impacts.

“It will give careful consideration to ways in which this could be achieved when making its decision on what changes should be made to the pension scheme.”

Paul Reuter, Unite national officer for steel, previously accused the firm of not doing enough.

He added: “Unless Tata enters into further meaningful negotiations that would preserve the pension scheme, then the first national industrial action in the industry for 30 years would seem inevitable.”

Unite’s ballot will close on Friday, June 5, with the votes of Community, GMB and Ucatt due to end on Friday, May 29.

Earlier this week, Tata revealed it had moved its European business into the black, but warned cheap Chinese imports threatened its future performance.