Workers take pay cut as Whyalla steelworks shutdown enters eighth week due to blast furnace issues

In short: The blast furnace at Whyalla's Steelworks has been out of operation since mid-March. Since the breakdown, the painstaking, methodical process of reintroducing heat into the furnace has been "two steps forward, one step back", according to Whyalla steelworks managing director Tony Swiericzuk. "Each time we go and introduce another wind tuyere … is the technical term, it's a hole, basically, that hot wind blows into the furnace through, you have to take the furnace offline for a short period of time to bring that wind tuyere back online, and by doing that you slightly chill the furnace again, so it's that sort of one step back," he said. Whyalla steelworks' managing director Tony Swiericzuk says it's been two steps forward one step back. "Whyalla's been through so much and we always get promised all these things and we never really get to see anything progress," Ms Bagshaw said.