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Electrolux: Urso calls a meeting for early October

After meeting with local authorities in the regions concerned, the minister will attend the Competitiveness Council in Brussels and then convene a further meeting at the Mimit

by Cristina Casadei

10 September 2026

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Il ministro delle imprese e del made in Italy, Adolfo Urso (EPA)

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

The Electrolux dispute has returned to where it began: the Mimit. The trade unions believe that the new plan presented by the company is unworkable and ‘does not identify the structural measures needed to safeguard the future and competitiveness of the Italian sites’, explains Massimiliano Nobis of Fim. According to Barbara Tibaldi of Fiom, “an operation is underway to reduce capacity at the Italian plants by shifting production to other parts of the world. However, this course of action seems more like a first step towards selling or closing the plants, rather than reviving Italian production”.

The latest meeting at the Ministry with Urso

The Minister for Enterprise and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, said he wished to “meet once again with the five regional governors of the areas where this major household appliance multinational has its factories, in order to coordinate the position of the Italian institutions with them. It is my intention to convene the ministerial round-table in the first week of October, partly to fully assess, together with them, the company and the trade unions, the measures we have requested from the EU and which will be on the agenda of the next Competitiveness Council meeting to be held in Brussels on 24 September. Europe has accepted our request to include our proposal on the agenda for that Council meeting as well; this proposal, which has been supported by France, Germany and Poland – that is, the other major European industrial nations – calls for the household appliances sector to be designated as strategic, just like the automotive sector.”

The failure of the technical working groups

The reduction in redundancies from over 1,700 to 1,450, as announced at the technical meetings in early September, as well as the increase in production from the initial 2.5 million units to 3 million, do not, in the view of the trade unions, guarantee sustainable employment levels, particularly now that various projects to relocate production are underway.

The relocation of production

The best-known example of production relocation concerns the Cerreto d’Esi site in the Marche region, which is set to cease operations at the end of the year: the production of cooker hoods will be moved to the sister plant in Poland, but, as the trade unions complain, ‘no reindustrialisation plan has yet been proposed’, Tibaldi points out.

Then there are the sites in Susegana where fridges are manufactured: in this case, the multinational’s plans reportedly also include transferring part of the production – specifically the lower value-added portion – to contract manufacturers in China. Porcia would lose part of its production of washer-dryers, a product that the European market struggles to recognise and which is made uncompetitive by Italian production costs. Hence the decision to transfer part of production to a sister site in Thailand. There would be no major changes for Solaro other than its involvement in the productivity improvement plan.

The multinational’s new plan

The multinational has, in fact, linked its plan to cut 1,450 jobs and invest a total of 90 million euros to an organisational restructuring aimed at increasing productivity, as well as to aid to reduce energy costs and support regarding the CBAM. Nobis points out that this is ‘a plan with many constraints and no real structural measures for recovery’. Tibaldi adds that ‘at this stage, it is necessary to return to the negotiating table with the multinational, given that the technical meetings at which they had committed to presenting a new plan ultimately failed to deliver the hoped-for results and we are back to square one’.

The Forlì website

Following the meetings at the Forlì site, where hobs are manufactured, the Emilia-Romagna Regional Councillor for Employment, Giovanni Paglia, stated that ‘the impression, following the latest technical meeting, is that we are back to square one and no progress has been made. The company has not changed its business plan: reducing redundancies from 1,719 to 1,450 does not alter the substance of the matter. We will never accept a phased closure, which, in the long term, will impoverish the region’. At present, the company has confirmed a total of 297 redundancies for the Forlì plant, comprising 214 production workers and 83 office staff. This dispute, according to Paglia, ‘concerns the whole country and its industrial future: this is why we are calling on the Government to take charge of finding a possible political solution, by committing to building a strategic relationship between Italia and the company’s owners. It must be clear that, for the institutions, there is no alternative to reviving the industrial project and that only in this context can all the necessary support measures be introduced, both in Italia and in Europe”.

Upcoming events

In recent days, Minister Urso’s meetings with the Governor of Friuli, Massimiliano Fedriga, and the Governor of Veneto, Alberto Stefani, have highlighted the great attention being paid to the dispute. There is a determination, not only amongst the trade unions but also within the institutions, to keep the spotlight on what is shaping up to be yet another difficult round of negotiations in a sector, the domestic appliance sector, which is losing ground in Europe – primarily due to the influx of Chinese products – and which will be at the centre of trade union and political debate. On 1 October, Urso convened the Beko round-table talks, with the Electrolux round-table to follow shortly afterwards. Meanwhile, on Tuesday 15 September, Electrolux workers will go on strike at all sites, with a demonstration in Cerreto d’Esi, whilst on 16 September a delegation of workers will be welcomed at the Pordenonelegge literary festival.