The picture that emerges is not the worst, indeed the metalworking sector, despite everything, it would seem to have overall withstood the shock wave of Covid. Nevertheless, from the former Ilva to Blutec, from Piombino / Jsw to Whirlpool, up to Bekaert and Industria Italiana Autobus, there are many disputes waiting to be resolved. The numbers of tables open at Mise in fact, for the metalworking sector alone, are still large: 52
the national crisis tables
for companies over 200 employees;
47 those of regional crises.
Almost 56 thousand, 55 thousand 817 to be exact, the places at risk. Four sectors were most affected: steel, automotive, household appliances, aeronautics. It is a Fim Report to photograph the situation on the industrial front.
And all this net of a whole series of corporate crises that fail to reach the Mise or even a regional table: small and medium-sized enterprises with around 15/20 employees, those that are most blaming the impact of the epidemic. “56 thousand workers at risk in the metalworking sector alone are too many, we need a change of pace “, warns the Fim leader, Roberto Benaglia, commenting on the Report and recalling how also for this tomorrow the unions will be in garrison under the Mise.
“We certainly do not expect things to be resolved with a magic wand, we need dialogue and collaboration. This is why we ask the Minister to take charge of these crises by reducing the Ministry of crisis unity. We need to concentrate our efforts more, resolve historical disputes in terms of industrial and supply chain policies, reliefs, liquidity and investments, to give these companies the opportunity to overcome this year and engage the recovery and maintain employment levels “, he concludes.
At the head of the historical tables at Mise the case of the ex-Ilva, mother of all disputes. But that’s not all: the pole is also found in a crisis that has never been resolved of the former Piombino steel plant today Jsw, the former Alcoa of Portovesme, now owned by Sider Alloys and, finally, the Terni Special Steel, offered for sale by ThyssenKrupp. And this precisely at a time when, the Fim Report still notes, the increase in steel imports from Germany, Turkey, Russia, China, at rising prices, from 40 cents to the euro per kg today, is transformed in fact “in a blow for Italian companies”.
Even the household appliance lies in an unresolved crisis “after the various promises of a solution by Conte 1 and 2” on the dispute din the Whirlpool of Naples, to which is added that of the entire group in Italy, which is weighed down by concerns about the decline in orders. No less in crisis, the Fim report still records, the automotive sector. Apart from the historical disputes of Blutec of Termini Imerese (ex-Fiat) and of ex-Iribus (Industria Italiana Autobus), today to the concerns of the collapse of the automotive market of 2020, the union adds in perspective those related to the ecological transition of the sector with the closure of the Honeywell site in Abruzzo, 340 employees and the commissioning, in February, of the workers of the site of Melfi of the Stellantis Group, for the lack of supply of chips.
Also worries the aeronautical sector and related industries of large petrochemicals with the Sicilian site of Priolo-Augusta and that of Saras in Sarlux in Sardinia, which, due to the drop in energy consumption, have considerably reduced maintenance. An important induced, 3000 employed in total, of companies located in areas of the country with a high rate of unemployment and difficulties in relocation.