Between the end of the year and the very first days of 2022, the Taranto area will be affected by a new wave of ordinary layoffs due to the crisis that two important industrial poles are going through: former Ilva, now Acciaierie d’Italia, and Leonardo. For the steel industry, where ArcelorMittal Italia first and Acciaierie d’Italia now, have been continuously implementing the layoffs since July 2019 and there have also been peaks of 4,000 employees, the new request, starting from December 27 and for 13 weeks, concerns 3,500 employees as the maximum number. For Leonardo, on the other hand, the 13 weeks of zero-hour cash desk involve 1,049 employees of the Grottaglie site (here there are about 1,300 direct total) from 3 January.
Different, compared to the two companies, the problems underlying the use of the cig. In the case of Acciaierie d’Italia, it is not the market that is in crisis and the pandemic effect has receded. Indeed, steel is experiencing a real golden season, with a positive impact on company accounts. Not so, however, for Acciaierie d’Italia (where the State is also present through Invitalia), held back by the problems of the Taranto plants which are not running at full capacity.
Stop and go that slows down production
Throughout 2020 it was the turn of blast furnace 2, which was stopped due to compliance work, and this took away from the calculation about 5 thousand tons of cast iron per day to be transformed into steel. Then from last April until July it was the turn of blast furnace 4 and, according to numbers provided by the company, another 5 thousand tons of pig iron per day were “blown”. Now it is again the turn of blast furnace 4, which will remain stationary at least until January 20, involving, by dragging, also the steel mill 1.
If in the previous circumstances it was a question of doing work on the two blast furnaces, now, instead, it is a question of understanding what prevents blast furnace 4, a short distance from the latest interventions made (and costing about 70 million euros, say the unions), from producing cast iron regularly. It is quite clear that the stop and go series is reflected in the company that last year, also due to the Covid affair, closed with an all-time low of production, 3.4 million tons, and that this year it was given a goal of 5 million as the first step in the ascent.
Steel, Giorgetti calls for December 13th
Meanwhile, on 13 December, starting at 2 pm and in attendance at the Mise, Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti summoned both the trade unions and the company. It is the first triangular confrontation, after Giorgetti and the Mise have repeatedly listened to the unions, and comes one month after the strike of Fim Cisl, Fiom Cgil and Uilm on 10 November with a demonstration in Rome. The fact that the company exists suggests that it will begin to enter into the merits of the new industrial plan of Acciaierie d’Italia that Giorgetti himself said would be presented by the end of the year. A plan rewritten compared to the last one of ArcelorMittal alone precisely because there is a new corporate structure and the State is a shareholder, as well as based on decarbonisation.