Whirlpool. Workers write to Mattarella: "The state does not abandon us"

• Naples, Whirlpool workers' protests: "The government will convene us"

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• Whirlpool, company initiates redundancy procedure.

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September 11, 2021 The workers of the Whirlpool in Naples are asking for "direct interest" to the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, who today sent an open letter to the head of state. "Dear President Mattarella, we are the 350 workers of Whirlpool and we are writing to ask for your direct interest in the dispute which unfortunately has seen us protagonists for more than 850 days" reads the letter in which the workers underline the time spent in Mattarella " since, on 31/5/2019, the American multinational decided not to keep the commitments of the agreement signed in the ministerial office on 25/10/2018, which provided for the relaunch of Naples and the production of high-end washing machines,concentrating all production on our factory with 18 million euros of investments never made, against which he obtained layoffs for the whole group in Italy (5500 employees), plus concessions and support for the industrial plan ".

"In two years - underline the workers to the President - there have been so many promises and commitments of the various ministers and governments, which you have appointed, have alternated on our dispute, but to date no concrete response and no solution has been proposed and Worst of all, no one has managed to reiterate that in Italy the agreements must be maintained and the institutions and the country must be respected ".

"We are just a few days from the closing of the collective dismissal procedure (29/9/2021) and the government has not yet summoned us, on the project it says it is preparing, to find a breathing solution capable of competing or being at the height of the agreements signed with Whirlpool, despite the direct commitments of Prime Minister Draghi who assured us, when we met him on a visit to the prison of Santa Maria Capua Vetere, his direct interest and commitment at the highest levels of the government "they add .

"Let us President - continues the letter - to underline the peculiarity at this moment of the dispute: after the Pandemic, the Whirlpool after the Pandemic, unlike when it declared it wanted to close Naples, is full of work and has about 800 temporary workers working in the other offices. Italy; it has not honored institutional commitments without ever being able to industrially explain its choice to move the top-of-the-range washing machines destined for Naples to other sites; it has not made use of the 13 covid weeks at no cost to support any scenarios to get out of a difficulty which is due to its choice to relocate; it will continue to ask for support and benefits for other productions present in Italy, despite the moment in which the country needs to reduce the social impact and there are market conditions to do so,does not withdraw from a purely economic and speculative choice ".

"We believe and ask you for your intervention - conclude the RSU - because this is the moment, even in the face of the PNRR which allows the management of important funds for the development of the South, to enforce government action in defense of workers who in these two years have resisted with dignity, decorum and respect for the institutions and represent the healthy part of society in a difficult territory in which every production site, and in particular that of Whirlpool, represents a defense of legality ".

The meeting on Whirlpool meanwhile we learn that it was convened by the Ministry of Labor, in agreement with the Mise and the Campania region, for Thursday 16 September (in videoconference at 10.30) to "start the administrative phase relating to the procedure of collective redundancy activated "by the company. It is learned from union sources. The convocation is addressed to the company and to the metalworkers' trade unions. Since it was learned, the workers of Naples have asked the Ministry to be able to participate in presence at the table. Yesterday a new protest at the port of Naples where the workers blocked the entrances of the vehicles at Varco Bausan causing long queues of the trucks that were waiting to embark.