• Ex Ilva, mouths sewn after the summit with the government. ArcelorMittal pulls straight
  • ArcelorMittal. Government-company meeting at Palazzo Chigi. Workers in Taranto garrison
  • The ArcelorMittal numbers
  • Ex Ilva: Arcelor Mittal leaves Taranto, Conte convenes the top management of the company
  • Ex Ilva, Arcelor Mittal notifies the Commissioners of the intention to withdraw
  • Ilva goodbye, the ArcelorMittal logo marks the new beginning of the Taranto steel pole
  • Ilva, third day of protest in Genoa

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06 November 2019

"It is a dispute that is particularly dear to the government, we believe that pole
industrial of strategic interest for the country. For the government to re-launch Ilva and Taranto is a priority. "This was stated by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte at a press conference at Palazzo Chigi, after the CDM.

"We immediately anticipated" to ArcelorMittal "that we do not believe these positions to be justified, rather to clear the field of any pseudo justification
the government has declared its availability with regard to immunity, "added Conte.

The Council of Ministers had finished around 22, preceded by a long summit to take stock of the former Ilva affair.

At the table, which lasted about three and a half hours, with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Economic Development Minister Stefano Patuanelli, Economy Minister Roberto Gualtieri, Southern Minister Giuseppe Provenzano, Health Minister Roberto Speranza, the Minister of Health Agriculture Teresa Bellanova, the Undersecretary for the Presidency Mario Turco. For ArcelorMittal instead sat Lakshmi Mittal and Aditya Mittal, CEO and CFO of the multinational.

ArcelorMittal pulls straight
But while the summit was underway at Palazzo Chigi, ArcelorMittal took another step forward in the sale of the former Ilva plant. The trade unions have received a formal communication regarding the "retrocession of the company branches together with the transfer of the related employees". In the table attached to the document it is specified that the provision concerns a workforce which on October 31st amounted to 10,351 employees.

Unions in agitation: strike from 15 today and for 24 hours
The Fim Cisl of Taranto-Brindisi has therefore proclaimed a strike starting from 3pm this afternoon, to allow the safety of the plants, and for 24 hours until tomorrow at the same time.

Fiom Cgil and Uilm have announced a 24-hour strike on 8 November, eight hours per shift, both in ArcelorMittal and in related industries. The strike on 8 November is
only of the two trade unions that today have dissociated themselves from the strike called by 15, and underway for 24 hours, by Fim Cisl against ArcelorMittal's letter redelivering staff to the Ilva extraordinary administration.

The communication of the activation of the procedure was made by the managing director of Arcelor Mittal Italy yesterday in Taranto to the trade unions, confirming in practice the letter of the day before yesterday announcing the recession from the contract for the management of the Ionian steel industry. "We believe this attitude is very serious that the multinational itself has adopted - writes Fim Cisl in a note - as it returns the plants and workers to extraordinary administrators, even before meeting the government". A behavior that the Fim Cisl, the secretariat and the RSU, define as "unacceptable". "It remains understood that the same mobilization - the Fim Cisl specifies - is a first signal regarding what happened without excluding further initiatives".

And the company has the "command" for 80 workers
ArcelorMittal also informed Fim Cisl and the workers concerned that they had placed the 'command' on the facilities of the Steel and Ferrous Scrap Departments for about eighty workers on the occasion of the 24-hour strike announced by the union organization, which began today at 15. The company explains that it must resort to the commissary (which on the basis of the trade union agreements is an obligation for the workers concerned) "because of the structural damage caused on the occasion of the strike of 10 July last which led to the scrapping of 7 torpedo cars" .

For this reason, the company sees the need "to avoid or reduce the risk of a repetition of what happens before, to protect people, the environment and the same possibility for the production site to start again at the end of abstention". It reiterates the "need for the completion of the casting ladle cycle necessary for the safety of the Acciaieria plant, including the emptying of the torpedo cars, to be carried out in time to avoid structural and irreversible damage". For this purpose, it has the "commandos" for the areas of Steelworks and Ferrous Scrap Management. The company also states that "the plant features of the Taranto site, in the absence of the indispensable safety devices whose implementation constitutes a mandatory obligation for those who proclaim the strike, and of those who suffer it, expose the personnel involved in the work, as well as the structures productive, to the risk of damage incompatible with the right to health and the exercise of economic activity ".

But the workers make the wall: high adhesion to the strike, the steelworks blocked 1
But the strike "is having a high level of adherence", says FIM CISL with a note underlining that the steel plant is blocked 1. "There is a high level of adhesion throughout the plant - we read - it is the total blockage of the steel plant 1 which is creating serious inconveniences to the entire iron and steel plant, only one of the five castings is active, and the company has tried to prescribe the workers for the safety of the plant, since it has not been confirmed. The steelworks 1 is moving towards total blockade with serious consequences not only in terms of production. The strike continues until 3pm tomorrow, with the blocking of concierge C with the relevant block of trucks ".

Genoa joins
The mobilization of the Taranto workers is associated with Genoa, with a great citizen demonstration, in the wake of the one organized in May 2011 which had brought almost ten thousand people to the streets to defend - in that case - Fincantieri and 3,000 jobs. This is what emerged from the table that took place this morning in the Liguria Region. The date has not yet been set, it could be Monday 11 November, but much will depend on the outcome of the meetings that are taking place in Rome. In Genoa there are 1,016 workers hired by ArcelorMittal while 280 remained in lay-off in Ilva under extraordinary administration. "The institutions are at the side of every initiative that the unions will want to take, to protect the employment of a strategic sector like steel," said Ligurian governor Giovanni Toti, speaking to the press at the end of the table.

Michele Emiliano, directly involved as governor of Puglia, says he is convinced that "Arcelor Mittal accomplished his task, he closed this dispute, prevented the factory from becoming efficient". "I Riva and Mittal- said interviewed at 24Mattino on Radio24- were in constant struggle like Juventus and Inter. And now it's as if Inter had bought Juventus, destroyed it and don't want anyone to put it back in feet ".

Boccia (Confindustria): "Politics has a sense of limits and solves"
"I hope there is room for a solution and that politics has a sense of limit, which sometimes is overcome and then the effects unfortunately arrive". Thus the president of Confindustria, Vincenzo Boccia, on the sidelines of the conference 'Modernity, business, work'. "It is a responsibility of politics, now politics resolves the questions it has determined", says Boccia.

"The problem is who pays all workers"
A consortium to save the former Ilva? "I don't know when it can be found and who pays all these workers: I remember that there is not only Taranto, but many factories in Italy" added Boccia. "The problem is who pays, there is someone in this country who disregards resources, unless he wants to coin money and pay directly on his own."