editorials
Ilva is dying whilst the trade unions remain silent
The government is extending the extraordinary redundancy scheme to ancillary sectors whilst plants are set to shut down. For direct employees alone, the cost amounts to ten million a year. And so a temporary subsidy becomes permanent
Photo: ANSA
“Even if the Court of Appeal had granted our request for a stay of execution, the plants would still have been shut down: in compliance with the July order, we had already halted supplies and were ready to shut them down. The court has merely accelerated a course of action that was already set.” This was stated yesterday by one of Ilva’s special commissioners during a Senate hearing on the latest bridging loan. A loan which, as admitted, is not intended to ensure the continuity of production but to pay off debts to the supply chain. And it is precisely the supply chain that is most at risk. Its employees, unlike the direct workers under the special administration, do not have access to the special redundancy scheme (CIGS). For the majority of Ilva’s metalworkers, however, the CIGS has been in place since at least 2018. That is why, on Monday, the supply chain blocked the swing bridge in Taranto: without orders from Ilva, companies will close and employees will end up on NASpI. But, as the commissioner admitted, it had been known since July that the plants were heading for closure. So why not protest during Meloni’s and President Mattarella’s visit for the opening of the Mediterranean Games? The answer is that the agreement between the government, the trade unions and the employers’ organisations had already been drawn up.
Today the government will announce the solution: the extraordinary redundancy scheme extended to related industries too. Everyone’s happy. The problem is that the CIGS is supposed to be for temporary crises. Here, however, the temporary becomes permanent and taxpayers foot the bill: ten million a year for Ilva alone. And even if the steelworks were to shut down for good, who would have the courage to stop the subsidy? How can you run an industry, attract investment and create jobs in a country where, whenever a crisis arises, politicians always offer the same state-sponsored ‘methadone’? Unfortunately, you know the answer: you simply can’t. What a shame.