No agreement between the company and the unions on layoffs for former Ilva employees, today Acciaierie d'Italia. On Monday the parties met for a last meeting at the Ministry of Labour, but when the group's managing director, Lucia Morselli, also joined the summit in the early afternoon, the split was consummated definitively. The reason is simple: steel production in the former Ilva has dropped from 8 to 6 million tons a year and, to recover it, the company does not intend to increase the workforce.
In the morning, during the meeting, hope had been kindled when the number of workers to be laid off had dropped to 2.750 from the initial 3. The workers, in Taranto, were waiting for news with the strike called by Uilm and Usb which saw the workers preside over the management of the steel industry. In the end, however, no agreement came. Now Acciaierie d'Italia will be able to decide unilaterally numbers and routes: exactly what the Ministry of Labor seemed to want to avoid.
The reactions of the unions
Fim Cisl
"The company will unilaterally apply the extraordinary fund as it has always done - says Valerio D'Alò, of the Fim Cisl national secretariat - We were thinking of a transitional plan for a year, to then understand what would happen next and on the basis of modular production the number of people involved. Instead, the company has asked for a three-year plan, within which to call into question the numbers enshrined in the 2018 union agreement in which full employment was set at six million tons. Basically, today the company told us it wanted to produce 2 million more tons (reaching 8 million), with the same staff and therefore not increase the workforce”.
Fiom Cgil
According to the CGIL, "the use of an instrument for 12 months and the return of workers in 2025, linked to a production recovery other than that defined in 2018, cannot be assumed".
Uilm
Rocco Palombella, Uilm leader, adds: "In addition to the forecast of 3 redundancies, the company has not given us any indication of the future corporate structure that may take place in May, whether or not there will be a rise to 60% of Invitalia, nor on the timing for the construction and commissioning of the electric furnace, the pre-reduced plant and the blast furnace 5. With this plan, the company envisages the dismissal of 3 workers over time, to which must be added the 1.700 currently under extraordinary administration: a unacceptable occupational disaster”.
UGL
The Ugl also criticizes, according to which the guarantees requested are not consistent with the "real intentions of the company, which leads to a restructuring that aims at 2025. On these premises, the lack of agreement was inevitable", the national secretary Antonio Spera and the national deputy secretary Daniele Francescangeli.
Read also - Ex Ilva will not become public in May and for now control will remain with ArcelorMittal: here's why
