A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #31-25 - GKN continues to be a point of reference. Workers' protests and the employment crisis in Tuscany (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The employment crisis in Tuscany is increasingly acute, revealing a 
deliberate attack on working-class concentrations. In Campi Bisenzio, 
near Florence, the Panorama supermarket in the I Gigli shopping center 
is closing: 45 layoffs after Panorama management suspended vulnerable 
workers. Forced to reinstate them, it had reduced the hypermarket's 
sales area. Now comes the decisive blow. At Atop in Barberino Val 
d'Elsa, also in the province of Florence, the owners announced 120 
layoffs in the second half of October. Atop produces automatic lines for 
the production of stators and rotors for electric motors, currently used 
primarily in the e-mobility sector (electric and hybrid motors), but 
also for household appliances, power tools, and other industrial 
applications. The owners justify their actions by blaming the lack of 
development of electric mobility. The company is part of the IMA Group, 
an Italian multinational controlled by the Vacchi family and 
specializing in the production of automatic packaging machines.

These are just the latest two reports of attacks on employment in 
Tuscany, adding to the dozens of ongoing disputes spanning virtually 
every province.

But the data that demonstrates the violence of the attack on workers' 
concentrations in Tuscany is the number of hours of redundancy payments: 
in the first six months of the year, 24.28 million hours of redundancy 
payments were granted in Tuscany. This is 6 million more than the 
previous year, or 42%.

The crisis is the weapon that employers use to crush worker resistance: 
when class organization reduces their profits, they respond with 
restructuring, job insecurity, and delocalization. While the individual 
and collective needs of citizens remain unmet, the employers let the 
machinery rust and keep the warehouses empty, waiting for unemployment 
to push workers into accepting restrictive contracts.

Within this context, the dispute of former GKN employees is exemplary. 
The factory collective hasn't won yet, but for now it hasn't lost.

This was demonstrated by the demonstration on October 18th, which saw 
thousands of people march alongside the factory collective to protest 
the Tuscany Region's delays in supporting the reindustrialization 
project developed by the factory collective with a team of experts. The 
demonstration headed to Florence airport, reached the check-in desks, 
and temporarily occupied the terminal. Law enforcement intervened 
violently to chase away the workers and put an end to the peaceful 
protest. This is the first time, if I'm not mistaken, that former GKN 
workers have used such a method of struggle. The factory collective is 
still there, and only its proposals for resolving the crisis are still 
on the table.

As Paola Imperatore wrote in these pages regarding the plan developed by 
the factory collective, sustainable public transport can effectively 
reduce air pollution and climate-altering emissions and facilitate 
mobility in the more peripheral neighborhoods. Paola Imperatore 
highlighted the plan's key points: the first concerns worker leadership 
in the industrial reconversion process; the second concerns the 
possibility of planning that aligns workers' needs with the protection 
of the local area and the environment in general; the third is the 
subordination of production decisions to social utility; and the fourth 
is linked to the role of workers' organizations throughout the entire 
production process. In this regard, it is worth remembering that the 
widespread organization of workers within the factory, not only through 
unions and RSUs, but especially through the Factory Collective and 
liaison delegates, made it possible to respond immediately to the 
layoffs, which occurred while workers were already out of the plant, and 
to organize a permanent picket line in a very short time. Finally, the 
fifth turning point is the recognition of workers' knowledge, which, in 
an equal dialogue with academics, gave rise to the Plan for Public and 
Sustainable Mobility.

The significance of the presence of a struggling working-class community 
for the region was evident during the floods. Paola Imperatore tells us 
more: "In November 2023, after heavy rains caused the Bisenzio River to 
overflow, killing five people and burying hundreds of homes under mud, 
the Campi Bisenzio factory-already the epicenter of unprecedented worker 
resistance-also became a gathering place for self-organized rescue 
teams, a meeting place to grab boots and shovels and dig up homes, 
libraries, clubs, and a warehouse for collecting basic necessities to 
distribute to the population. While state shortcomings left people 
underwater, and bureaucracy attempted to curb even spontaneous forms of 
solidarity, the GKN workers-doubtfully burdened by the flood and the 
threat of layoffs-were there, getting their hands dirty with mud, 
providing a vital means of organization and struggle for the local 
community."

Today, the struggle of the former GKN workers continues to be a point of 
reference, especially for the experience gained, well summarized in the 
phrase: "No more trust in 'them,' more trust in us."

But the plan alone is not enough, just as it is not enough to jeopardize 
public order, which remains the only means available to the working 
class to extract previously inaccessible capital. All disputes must be 
unified around the goal of drastically reducing working hours while 
maintaining the same wages, and around guaranteed income for all workers 
displaced from the production process. Then, yes, it will be possible to 
build a truly collective, unifying alternative, beyond the more or less 
humiliating begging of the authorities; a real alternative to the 
inconclusive "round tables," which only serve to tire the working class 
and make it accept individual solutions and compromises.

Tiziano Antonelli

Pictured: Cover of the text Insorgiamo, Collective Diary of a Workers' 
Struggle (and More), GKN Factory Collective, Edizioni Alegre (detail)

https://umanitanova.org/gkn-ancora-punto-di-riferimento-lotte-operaie-e-crisi-occupazionale-in-toscana/
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