(Finance) – “Morselli and Mittal away from Taranto”. Workers, unions and entrepreneurs – over six thousand, according to the trade union organizations – marched in thousands around the perimeter of the plant former Ilva of Taranto to ask the government to oust the multinational from the corporate structure of Acciaierie d’Italia and take control of the plant. ArcelorMittal holds 62% of the shares, while lnvitalia he is in the minority with 38%. There is no agreement among the shareholders on the recapitalization and purchase of the assets and the use of extraordinary administration is becoming increasingly probable. There mobilization was organized by the metalworking acronyms, who denounce the progressive shutdown of the plants.
According to the trade unions there is “a very real risk of closing the plant” due to a “very specific wish of the CEO (Lucia Morselli, ed.), a de facto expression of ArcelorMittal”. For this reason they ask, in the conversion process of the latest decree concerning the former Ilva, to “find the appropriate guarantees to protect workers and company credits” and for the ” environmental, employment and industrial protection”. The government, say the metalworking acronyms, must first of all “drive out the multinational responsible for a social and economic disaster”. For days Fim, Fiom, Uilm and Usb they denounce the progressive shutdown of the blast furnaces (currently only number 4 is in operation), so much so that the commissioners asked AdI for urgent information on the state of the plants and announced that they wanted to carry out an inspection of the factory.
Also joining the initiative were theUgl Metalworkers and the Aigi, Casartigiani and Confapi Industria employers’ associations. The demonstrators started from the steel company concierge to first touch the pipe factories concierge, then the C concierge, where the related workers joined, including the Casartigiani transporters with their trucks, to then go to the Appia state road towards the factory management. At the head of the long snake were the workers of Acciaierie d’Italia, Ilva in As and related industries and the trade union delegates who showed flags and banners, lit smoke bombs and chanted slogans. Also demonstrating were entrepreneurs from the related industries, who complain about the non-payment of overdue invoices and fear losing credits for over 130 million euros, as happened in 2015 when Ilva was placed under administration.
The government is evaluating a series of measures to protect businesses, but according to Aigi the pre-announced pre-deductibility measures “are not feasible as AdI is a company without assets”. A response is expected by February 1st to the letter that Invitalia addressed, on 17 January, to Acciaierie d’Italia holding and Acciaierie d’Italia, which in turn had submitted an application to the Milan Chamber of Commerce for the negotiated settlement, requesting verification of the conditions for starting the procedures which lead to extraordinary administration. If it doesn’t arrive, the government will still be able to act. In the meantime, discussions continue to find new private partners. But first the deal with ArcelorMittal must be closed, possibly without disputes.