Fluorsid, towards production stoppage and staff reduction due to Hormuz crisis

The conflict in the Middle East also has a negative impact on Fluorsid. The chemical company, owned by Giulini (the owner of Cagliari), which produces, among other things, sulphuric acid and aluminium fluoride at its Sardinian plant in Macchiareddu. Products used both in the oil industry and in metallurgy for the production of aluminium.

On the horizon is the stoppage of three lines at the plant located on the outskirts of Cagliari and a reduction in personnel. Outlining this scenario are the secretaries of the Filctem, Femca and Uiltec trade organisations after a meeting with company management last Thursday afternoon.

"Fluorsid has announced that because of the situation in the Middle East it will be forced to stop three production lines and this will lead to staff redundancies,'' Giampiero Manca of Filctem, Marco Nappi and Mattia Carta of Femca and Pierluigi Loi and Davide Collu of Uiltec stressed in a note. A situation that the unions view with enormous concern, also because the company is intent on managing direct negotiations with the workers for voluntary redundancies, instead of initiating union talks and availing itself of the legislative instruments provided for the management of states of crisis'.

The trade unionists' reconstruction continues: "Last Thursday a meeting took place between Tommaso Edoardo Giulini, Fluorsid's majority shareholder, managing director Andrea Alessandro Muntoni and the territorial representatives of the trade unions and representatives of Confindustria - the trade unionists emphasise - . During the meeting, president Giulini denounced the company's very difficult situation, which has worsened in the last period due to the Middle East crisis with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the consequent bombing of some refineries to which it supplied raw material.

Another knot also had to be unravelled: 'The president also pointed out that even as a result of strong competition from the Chinese markets,' reconstructed the trade unionists, 'there are no longer the conditions to maintain the same aluminium fluoride production as in the past'. Hence the decision to stop. "It was president Giulini himself, in fact, who announced the stoppage of production lines 1, 2 and 3 starting from mid-June," the trade unionists go on to remind us. "According to what the president said, production for the future will drop from 100 thousand tonnes a year to 40 thousand.