Natuzzi, clash over Cigs. Summit at the Ministry of Labour

The appointment is this morning at 9.30 a.m. in Via Flavia. On the Natuzzi, crisis, the company, trade unions, representatives of the Puglia and Basilicata regions have been summoned to the offices of the Ministry of Labour, in the presence of the advisor of the Minister for Enterprise and Made in Italy. A new meeting defined as 'decisive' for the developments of the complex dispute and the near future of the group. The first convocation on 27 May at the Mimit of the permanent round table dedicated to the historic furniture brand, announced by Minister Adolfo Urso, is subordinate to a possible agreement on the redundancy fund. Awaiting then the developments of the company's request to access Invitalia's Salvaguardia fund and the possible negotiated crisis settlement procedure.

In a progressively worsening picture, on the negotiating table now is the latest request of the owners for an extraordinary redundancy fund at 80% for the employees of the leading company of the Alta Murgia sofa district. Lay-off fund and redundancy incentives for almost 500 employees closer to retirement. A prospect in these terms rejected as 'inadmissible' by the CGIL, CISL, UIL and UGL, which will be heard again this morning at 10.30 a.m. by the Productive Activities Commission of the Chamber of Deputies (after the hearing of the Sardinia Region on the crisis of Ceramica mediterranea spa).

After months of stalemate, demonstrations and growing tension, Santeramo in Colle, in the province of Bari, anxiously awaits the developments of this day: the fate of the Natuzzi group, founded in 1959 by Pasquale Natuzzi, is in fact also the fate of almost a thousand employees, many of them women, with little chance of finding new employment in the area, 'if not in an undergrowth of illegal workshops', they denounce. And for some time the Natuzzi crisis has been hanging like a sword of Damocles over the other 600 small and medium-sized enterprises in the district.

If in recent months the industrial plan was discussed, now a further drop in orders, the share price fluctuations on Wall Street, and even the international geopolitical picture have made the group's near horizon even gloomier. This is why the need now - sources close to the dossier tell us - has become 'to secure the company, provide it with tools to protect workers and intervene on employment issues'. The company has asked the Ministry of Labour to raise the extraordinary redundancy fund agreement, currently between 45 and 60 per cent under certain conditions, to 80 per cent. And the workers report that they already have a work schedule with shifts 'only on Thursdays and part of Fridays', confirming - according to them - the intention to move further pieces of production to Romania. Together with the CIGS, voluntary redundancies are being discussed: the company has most recently raised the incentives to about 50,000 euros, 'but in small instalments over five years and by making redundancies, therefore without access to the Naspi', is the dispute of the trade unions, ready for new forms of mobilisation after the chequered strikes of recent weeks between the factories.

Between Rome, Bari and Santeramo in these hours people are reflecting on numbers and scenarios: 500 exits and a CIGS at 80% would allow time to deal with all the strategic and structural issues of the group, from reorganisation to management to marketing, through times very different from those of Pasquale Natuzzi's beginnings. In the hope then that new orders and a more serene international context will make the waters less stormy for the company. In the event of access to the negotiated crisis settlement procedures, the board of directors knows it has 180 days ahead of it, and then possibly another 180, to get Natuzzi on safer tracks.