Protests are taking place this morning in front of the Cagliari Prefecture regarding the dispute over the sale of the Bekaert plant in Macchiareddu . Organizing the demonstration are Fiom Cgil, Fsm Cisl, and Uilm Uil.
A delegation was then received in the offices in Piazza Palazzo: the request was for intervention in support of the dispute for the activation of all the institutional initiatives necessary to safeguard employment levels and to guarantee certain and long-lasting job prospects for all the personnel involved.
The initiative is part of the mobilization launched by metalworkers following the multinational's sudden announcement last September of the decision to put up for sale the plant in southern Sardinia that has been producing steel cord for tires for over fifty years. "That decision," said territorial secretaries Marco Mereu (FIOM), Marco Angioni (FSM), and Alessandro Andreatta (UILM), "risks resulting in a disguised cessation of operations with the potential loss of approximately three hundred jobs." The unions explain that there have been expressions of interest, but there is no certainty that potential buyers will actually be present. It's a race against time: the deadline for finalizing the transfer of ownership is September.
"Everything suggests that if that date is reached without any positive developments," the secretaries warn, "the multinational could proceed to close the plant ."
Attention is now turning to the next meeting at the Ministry scheduled for Wednesday to review the dispute, which will be attended by Bekaert's European management. For the unions, this isn't just a single corporate dispute, but a full-blown social emergency: "Sardinia cannot afford to lose a production site that represents an industrial and employment asset with half a century of history behind it."
(Unioneonline/vl)
