Former Ilva Taranto: a phased government plan to manage the shutdown of the hot area and its impact on employment

Now that the Milan Court of Appeal has confirmed, in an order issued on 11 September, that the hot zone of the former Ilva site in Taranto must be shut down by the end of October because it causes pollution and is harmful to health, it will be necessary to draw up a plan which, proceeding in stages, tackles the various and complex problems that this shutdown will entail. The Government has announced that the trade unions have been summoned to Palazzo Chigi on Tuesday, and it is likely that the Executive’s initial moves and commitments will be outlined at that meeting. The former Ilva site “is one of the issues on which we are spending the most time”, said Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, announcing the imminent reconvening of the round-table discussions.

It goes without saying that a factory which will no longer be able to produce, as its ‘engine’ – the hot section in Taranto – shut down and therefore unable to supply everything downstream, including the plants in the north, will no longer be able to keep the nearly 10,000 employees who currently make up its direct workforce in employment. Today, the former Ilva has an extraordinary redundancy fund authorised by the Ministry of Labour for 4,500 workers, 3,800 of whom are in Taranto. This is the maximum limit set, but the actual figure is lower. In Taranto, for example, trade union sources say that around 3,000 workers are currently on the scheme. Now, with the hot area being shut down, these figures will inevitably rise. This is because, in addition to shutting down blast furnace 2, which is currently in production, blast furnaces 1 and 4 – which are not producing but are nevertheless being kept in pre-heating mode (they are not producing because No. 1 is under seizure following a fire in May 2025, a seizure confirmed last June by the Court of Cassation, whilst No. 4 has been undergoing maintenance). Steelworks No. 2 (No. 1 is already shut down) and the other associated plants will also be halted. In addition to the direct employees, there is the entire workforce of indirect contractors. That is to say, the staff of the many companies that provide the former Ilva with works, maintenance, supplies, transport and various other services. It will be a question of numbers – which will inevitably be significant – but also of the financial resources that will need to be found to cope with the increase in redundancy payments. Meanwhile, a business association, Aigi, has already stated that the 2,500 collective redundancies by 28 member companies are resuming. These redundancies were announced on 4 September, suspended on 8 September following the summit at Palazzo Chigi, and resumed on 11 September. However, beyond this, the figures for the new redundancy scheme are not yet available, nor have they been announced, partly because legal developments were being awaited, and partly because a decision still needs to be made on what action to take.

As for the former Ilva employees, some of the workforce will remain at the factory to carry out monitoring, surveillance and safety duties at the plants, even whilst they are inactive. It is estimated that this could be between 500 and 1,000 people, but we will have to wait and see. However, the entire section downstream of the hot end – known as the cold end, although the more correct term is the rolling mill – will be able to operate. This is divided into hot rolling and cold rolling. The former transforms steel slabs into coils or sheet metal; the latter, on the other hand, involves further processing of the coils, either by reducing their thickness or by coating them. The first area comprises the strip mills, the strip finishing line – which is an extension of the mills – and the plate mill. The second area, on the other hand, comprises pickling, the tandem mill and annealing. The company’s customers either purchase the coils directly or request that they be further processed or cut into sheets.

The cold-rolling mill is not subject to any legal restrictions. It can operate and therefore produce, but on two conditions: that it is supplied with steel slabs from outside, as the steelworks will no longer be able to produce them, and that it obtains the electricity required for the plants from the grid, given that the factory’s power station – which is itself powered by energy recovered from the hot area’s operations – will cease to supply power. The external supply of slabs is already taking place. Last month, on the sidelines of a meeting convened by the Minister for Enterprise, Adolfo Urso, to explore the possibility of setting up a consortium of Italian steelmakers for the former Ilva, Antonio Marcegaglia, head of the industrial group of the same name and a customer of the Taranto steelworks, expressed his willingness to supply the site with slabs so as not to completely disrupt production continuity. And in the last few hours, a ship carrying a cargo of slabs from Metinvest, a Ukrainian steel group, has arrived at the port of Taranto.

Trade union sources say that the cold-rolling section, with all its plants in operation, employs around 1,600 people; however, the sheet metal mill, the cold rolling mill, the Erw tube mill and strip mill 1 are currently inactive. The staff are on furlough. Strip mill 2 and the strip finishing line, however, are operational. Strip Mill 2 is operating intermittently, according to trade union sources, depending on the slabs being produced and those arriving from outside. Around 400 workers are employed across Strip Mill 2 and the strip finishing section. Starting with what is currently available – namely the cold rolling mill – and then gradually addressing the rest, including the possible installation of an electric furnace, is also what the president of Confindustria, Emanuele Orsini, called for a few days ago.