Dispute Gkn. Over 10 thousand at the national demonstration with the partisan motto: "Let's rise up"

• Florence, thousands in Piazza della Signoria against layoffs at Gkn

• Gkn, government proposes 13 weeks of Cig to find a solution

• Gkn.

  At the start of the table to avert layoffs, but the company insists: "Stop irreversible site"

• Gkn, 422 workers fired by email.

  Night at the factory, assembly to the bitter end

• Gkn, 422 collective redundancies by mail in Florence

Share

18 September 2021 The dispute of the Gkn 'takes' the avenues of Florence around the Fortezza da Basso to head towards the historic center and stop in Piazzale Michelangelo with the interventions of the workers. The procession has on its head the original flag of the Sinigaglia Brigade and the partisan motto, "Insorgiamo", the symbolic word of this dispute. Over 10,000 people flocked to Florence to take part in the GNK event, which has become a national initiative, and everyone considers it a 'trench', the GKN trench.

"If they break through here, they break through everywhere", the workers of the Campi Bisenzio plant, manned day and night, have been repeating for 72 days. The fact has been well understood and on the day of the national demonstration called by the Collective of the factory to protest against the 422 dismissals carried out by e-mail, they appear as a gigantic and collective Italian dispute.

"We know of cars that came a little from all over Italy", say the workers. There are those who have reached Florence by train or some bus, "even if getting around by organized buses at this stage is complicated due to anti Covid regulations". There are those who remark: "I don't know how long I have not participated in a demonstration of this size," says one man. "But being here - echoes a woman - is good, because this 'stuff' goes far beyond the GKN, it affects us all. I also see it as a political laboratory that started from below".

Many unions and representatives of various Italian working realities that joined the demonstration in Florence in support of the workers of the Gkn factory in Campi Bisenzio (Florence) who were fired in July by email. In addition to the banner 'Insorgiamo' of the Collettivo di Fabbrica-Lavoratori Gkn Firenze, the flags of the Anpi and Fiom Cgil are waved. Present a banner inviting a general strike and one with the words 'Florence rebel never tames' of the student collectives. The demonstrators also lit orange smoke bombs, present flags of various unions, the network of middle students and those of the student collectives of the Marche and Cobas. Together with the workers of the Gkn Firenze the workers of the Whirlpool of Naples are demonstrating with the banner 'Naples does not give up',a representation of the RSU of Piaggio di Pontedera (Pisa), the workers of the Sanac of Massa Carrara and the textile district of Prato.

"The workers of the Gkn have called this demonstration which has responded to metalworking companies in crisis and various political and social groups who think that a change is needed in this country. They have called a demonstration and Fiom is naturally present and supports it, we are doing with them the dispute. At present we reject the request that the company makes for layoffs for termination. Gkn is a good company, which has orders, it is a financial operation dictated by a fund "evaluates Francesca Re David, general secretary Fiom. Furthermore, in the Gkn affair "not understanding that in this way the industrial system of our country and employment are destroyed is a serious mistake and we are convinced that the government should not face crises in this way.We need tools to face the transition that keep companies and jobs tied up. " 

On the morning of 9 July, the 422 workers of the British multinational Gkn Driveline of Campi Bisenzio, in the province of Florence, received a sudden cold shower after the company, active in the automotive components sector, decided to open a collective dismissal procedure for all its employees, leaving them unemployed. The British multinational is owned by a foreign investment fund and motivated the decision to immediately lay off all the workers at the Campi Bisenzio site with a decline in the automotive market and the need to drastically reduce production costs due to the great competitiveness.