A truce for the former Ilva related industries. The associations most representing the companies involved accepted the government's appeal, deciding to freeze the collective dismissal procedures initiated by the companies last week.
A brake which, however, remains hanging on the decision of the Court of Milan, which in less than twenty-four hours will evaluate the request for suspension against the stop of the hot area, while the government opens up to the possibility of a public participation in the former Ilva. For the steel industry associations, the decision to interrupt the dismissal procedures was "a sense of responsibility", especially given the guarantees of production continuity provided by the government.
During the day of meetings at Palazzo Chigi with local authorities, employers' associations and trade unions, called precisely to discuss the situation of the former Ilva, the undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council Alfredo Mantovano clarified that "that of the government is not a perspective of resignation", but of relaunch. "The future of Ilva - he said during the meeting - will in any case be linked to green and decarbonisation through electric ovens powered by Dri".
An objective that the government intends to achieve through the convocation of another permanent table, compared to the model implemented for the realization of the works of the Jubilee 2025 and for the interventions in the Land of Fires in Campania. The Puglia region spoke of "partial responses", while highlighting the mission of maintaining the decarbonized steel hub in Taranto. But for the unions the tables are not enough.
"Problems cannot be solved with words - said the general secretary of Fiom Michele De Palma -. Today we need concrete things". While Fim Cisl and Uilm have once again underlined the need for a public address. The government opened up to this possibility, in a meeting animated by what was defined as "great tension", for a situation "that has been dragging on for more than fifteen years", underlined the general secretary of the Fim Cisl Ferdinando Uliano.
However, any future decision will always be influenced by the hearing on 9 September. Tomorrow, in fact, the Milan Court of Appeal will evaluate the request for suspension presented by the extraordinary administrations of Acciaierie d'Italia and Ilva against the stop of the hot area. "Should the Court confirm the decree suspending the hot area - explained Mantovano - the government's intention is to try to transform a complicated and difficult situation into an opportunity to relaunch the area".
The action plan illustrated by the government is structured along three lines, which concern the prospect of the ongoing tenders, the social measures to address the employment repercussions of a possible suspension of the hot area and the re-industrialisation projects, "with the possibility of reabsorbing the workforce of the former Ilva and the possibly redundant related industries".
For the Puglia region these were "partial responses", however highlighting the executive's intention to maintain the decarbonised steelmaking hub in Taranto - "There is a hypothesis - specified the president of the Puglia region Antonio Decaro - also of a pension slippage for those who have worked, both direct and indirect workers and those in related industries, those people who however have had a link with the hot area of the integral cycle, which is a cycle with which there is been the production in recent years".
The meeting at Palazzo Chigi, according to Confcommercio "essentially highlighted the need to imagine a future for Taranto that is not exclusively linked to Ilva". During the day, the general secretary of the CGIL, Maurizio Landini, also returned to the matter, underlining the inability of the CGIL to "accept solutions that go in the direction of a downsizing and in fact a closure of those activities".
