Eurallumina: deadlocked dispute – workers and trade unions ready to take action

Ready to take action because ‘their patience has run out’. The announcement that protest actions are to resume comes from the workers at Eurallumina in Portovesme, the company at the very start of the aluminium supply chain, controlled by the Russian firm Rusal, which is now facing insolvency. The company, which until its shutdown in March 2009 was involved in the processing of bauxite into alumina (from which primary aluminium is then produced), is now facing a freeze on funds due to sanctions against Russia. This situation has become the focus of various disputes and appeals to the Regional Administrative Court (TAR), leading Rusal to suspend payments to its subsidiary – amounting to around 2.4 million euros per month – and to put on hold the recovery plan worth over 350 million euros.

Hence the risk of insolvency because, as the trade unions have pointed out, ‘the funds that the State should be providing to keep the factory running are not materialising, and the debt is mounting’. The company has initiated the preliminary procedure laid down for cases of corporate crisis. Furthermore, in the event of a further shutdown, the groundwater remediation system is at risk. ‘If the environmental monitoring programme at Portovesme is halted, it exposes the area to a very real risk of an environmental disaster,’ write the trade unions. It also means exposing the State to safety and remediation costs which the company itself estimates at around 300 million euros, compared with the few million needed today to ensure continuity’. Hence the launch of the initiatives to be implemented.

This issue, as highlighted by the trade unions and workers, has been raised in recent weeks and is expected to be the focus of a ministerial meeting scheduled for 23 October, not least because the meeting held a few days ago ‘ended in yet another postponement’. For this reason, from the 22nd onwards, the workers have announced a sit-in outside the gates of the Portovesme factory, which has been shut down for 17 years due to high energy costs. ‘Postponing it yet again does not mean saving money: it means multiplying the bill, and it would be the workers, the local area and the whole community who would end up paying for it.’

“Workers and the local community no longer need announcements; they need action,” they go on to write. “Let us be clear: Friday 23 October is the absolute deadline. On that occasion, the Government – and in particular the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) – must guarantee the funding necessary to continue the plant’s operational management. These resources are not ‘merely’ needed to safeguard workers’ wages: they are the very condition for ensuring the site’s safety.” Then a final passage: ‘It is worth reiterating once more: preserving the asset is not a courtesy, it is a legal obligation incumbent upon those who imposed and maintain the freeze. The Government cannot continue to stand by as a spectator to a crisis that it has caused and for which it bears full responsibility.’