Ex Ilva Genoa, workers go on strike again

The protest of the workers of the former Ilva plant in Genoa Cornigliano, which had been suspended on Thursday on the eve of the next day's meeting at the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy, has resumed. This morning, at the end of an assembly, the steelworkers proclaimed an immediate strike. In a procession, with some heavy vehicles, they left the plant and went to the Cornigliano station, where a garrison is in place. They announced that they have no intention of moving until there is news.

'The workers of Ilva in Genoa,' says the secretary general of the Genoa Fiom, Stefano Bonazzi, 'are resuming the fight exactly where they left it: Friday's meeting went very badly, in fact there is no reopening of the plants in the north, there continues to be the prospect of a shutdown of the plants in Genoa, Novi Ligure and Racconigi. The workers are not willing to accept this and today they are back in the fight. The demand is very clear: withdrawal of the short plan, that is, the fact that Taranto produces little and that little is not sent to the North to be processed'.

And Armando Palombo, Fiom union representative at the former Ilva, echoes him: 'They have taken 200,000 tonnes of galvanised steel from us, there will be no increase in the redundancy fund: we would have to stay four months without doing anything; to a 50-year-old man, to envisage such a scenario is not nice. Before they take us for euthanasia we will take action. If this government has really decided to close down, the price we will make them pay is very high and that is why today we are doing what we stopped on Thursday: they have to come to evacuate us with the police, because we are not giving up, we are on the side of reason, we are producing, we have kept the plants standing.

Antonio Apa, Uilm Liguria coordinator, was also clear: 'They should get any closure of Cornigliano and the entire steelworks complex out of their heads. Friday's meeting in Rome with the minister was totally unsatisfactory. We are not convinced by Urso's assurances of further negotiations with other international operators, plus an Italian group, who would be willing to take over the steelworks. Fairy tales. Because it is 15 months that the minister has failed on the sale of the former Ilva. The government today is in a phase of relative stability, with public accounts in order. Therefore we need to find an Italian group with direct state participation'.

On Friday, emphasised the president of the Liguria Region, Marco Bucci, 'we managed to obtain, at least, the tin and now we are working on the galvanisation, so we will go ahead with that too. There will be, this week, further meetings with Minister Urso and so we will go ahead. There is to be negotiation and we will continue to negotiate, but we are waiting for the final buyer and we will do everything possible so that this can happen by 28 February'.