Roel Berghuis
When we meet at Duinpark Paasdal in Wijk aan Zee, Roel tells me that his brother Jan’s wife has just passed away. She had been ill for five years, the last two and a half in a care facility.
“It was also a relief,” he says quietly.
He has written the obituary that will appear in the newspaper tomorrow.
“It had to come out,” he adds — sober, but moved.
That tone — both personal and political — runs through the entire conversation.
He started at Hoogovens at seventeen, as a smelter: a boy among fire. He worked on the “hot side” for sixteen years before finding his place in the union. There he spent twenty-eight years, growing into a senior representative and negotiating with major companies, including the Dutch Railways.
“That’s where I learned how to bring the outside in,” he says.
In 2020, he was approached by union members at Tata Steel. Their representative was leaving; they were looking for someone who knew the company and its culture. Someone who could step in immediately. Beneath that practical request lay something deeper: a company in crisis — technically, socially, morally.
What he encountered was a siege mentality.
“Everything from outside is seen as hostile.”
Press, politics, residents, activists — all perceived as intruders. A comparison once made by journalist Peter de Waard — Asterix & Obelix versus the Romans — becomes for Roel a working diagnosis.
The remedy: opening up.
He connects with former directors, environmental organisations, critical journalists and other unions — not to agree, but to arrive at a plan that can land somewhere.
Gradually, his direction takes shape. Hisarna, once presented as the technological future of the plant, will not be the solution, he concludes after visiting the site. Instead, Green Steel — DRI and electric furnaces — becomes central. He also advocates for greater public ownership, and for a new industrial landscape: wind, hydrogen, manufacturing for the future rather than smoke and pollution.
21 September 2021 becomes a turning point.
Tata’s management adopts his plan.
“Not because they came up with it themselves,” he says dryly, “but because the pressure finally pointed in the right direction.”
Yet he feels the ambivalence.
“Sometimes I think: I am also part of that system,” he says. “I’ve spent my life in it — with all its flaws and its strengths. But someone has to keep pushing from within.”
He is clear about what must happen: Coke Plant 2 must close — “preferably tomorrow” — as a political decision, not a technical excuse. Transparency has improved, but the culture remains closed.
He sees the core issue at ownership level: strategic decisions are made in India, while Dutch leadership hears about them afterwards.
He does not advocate full nationalisation, but public participation.
“Buy influence, share risks, and link public money to public goals.”
On finances, he is clear — but everything is friction.
“It’s about billions, and about time.”
He understands political delay, but sees what is lost in the meantime. Plans postponed, years slipping away.
If clean hydrogen remains scarce and expensive, he expects pressure to build for electric furnaces first. But the standard must remain high.
“IJmuiden grew on top-quality steel. That cannot be diluted.”
His Plan B is not housing, but work. He dismisses ideas of turning the site into a residential area.
“You replace dirty with better — not with emptiness.”
He is equally critical of speculative real estate dreams.
“With local residents and action groups, tensions remain. Not because health doesn’t matter — it does. He understands the concern, especially from newer residents. But he is frustrated by the ease with which some judge a world they hardly know.
“The factory was already here,” he says.
“But that doesn’t absolve Tata of responsibility.”
On health, he is careful.
“It is serious,” he says. “But it is not only serious.”
He believes in improvement, not destruction.
“You don’t make it better by tearing it down.”
He understands the anger, not always the tone.
“If we only accuse each other, no one will be left to fix it.”
At the core remains his original commitment: a steel plant is not just a building, but a network — of knowledge, jobs, education.
Shut it down, and “you get a desolate IJmond.”
Let it continue as is, and the environment pays with health and trust.
So the company must become faster, more open, stricter — and workers must be able to stand not only beside, but also opposite management when necessary.
His belief that Tata can remain is rooted in both pride and hope.
“I want my grandson to be able to say: that steel comes from IJmuiden,” he says. “But without the smoke.”