Natuzzi crisis, countdown for the entire sofa district

When it became clear that the distances remained unbridgeable, the Natuzzi crisis table at the Ministry of Labour was postponed to 19 May. Seven more days to seek a compromise on an 80% lower redundancy fund and more advantageous redundancy incentives. A race against time to avoid tears at a time when the very sustainability of the company is in question.

So for the historic sofa brand, for its 1,700 employees and for the other 600 companies in the upholstered furniture district, a new countdown begins in this very long crisis that has become a sword of Damocles for the economy of the Alta Murgia. A fragile territory between Bari and Matera, which is clamouring for 'the entry of the State into the capital after more than 20 years of public funding', stressed Fillea CGIL, Filca Cisl, Feneal Uil and Ugl during the hearing in the Productive Activities Commission of the Chamber of Deputies. The company, as IlSole24ore reported yesterday, has filed for the Safeguard Fund and Invitalia has begun due diligence. But the timing is unpredictable: the present is the ongoing negotiations.

It was a morning of increasingly tense discussions yesterday in Via Flavia: Natuzzi's top management, starting with Marco Natuzzi, the patron's son, confirmed the 'need to increase the extraordinary redundancy fund up to 80%', in the face of a drop in orders and the repercussions of the international context on a company listed on the Nyse. But from the outset it was wall to wall with the unions, who correlated the almost doubling of the cigs from the current 45% to 80% with the 'increase in work in Romania', attacks Tatiana Fazi, Fillea Cigl, in front of parliamentarians. Specific questions on this crucial point will be put by the parliamentary commission directly to the owners of Natuzzi, to whom a request for a hearing has been addressed, while Patty L'Abbate (M5S) urges a convocation of the owner of Mimit, Adolfo Urso. At yesterday's meeting, the Ministry of Productive Activities reiterated the importance of finding an agreement to secure the company.

Attention therefore now shifts to the bilateral talks scheduled between the company and trade unions on 18 May in Rome, on the eve of the new meeting at the Ministry of Labour. A possible aid to the agreement could come from the measure of the Regione Puglia, already used for the ex Ilva, of incentives to support workers at risk of being expelled from the labour market. "It is an intervention that aims to reduce the social impact of the 'cigs'," explained the regional councillor for economic development Eugenio Di Sciascio, "and give tools to deal with industrial change. In the event of an agreement on a redundancy fund, the Region could intervene with a daily economic contribution to be translated into training.

At the table, no one is giving up on new lay-off thresholds, there is talk of 55%. But the negotiations also pass through the knot of redundancy incentives. Solicited by the Ministry, the company would not have ruled out a reflection on the last offer for voluntary redundancies of about 50,000 over five years. Conditions rejected as 'unacceptable' by the trade unions, first and foremost on behalf of the almost 400 employees close to retirement who would lose their Naspi. However, a possible agreement between the company and the unions also depends on the convening, on 27 May, of the permanent round table set up by Minister Urso for the Natuzzi crisis.