It cannot be said that it was a bolt from the blue, but the timing is surprising. Shortly before the inspection by the ministry's technicians, this morning, Glencore communicated to the unions that it will bring forward the closure of the zinc line to Monday .
A decision, that of stopping the line that transforms blende into zinc in Portovesme, which risks sending 1,200 workers into redundancy and creating problems in accessing the plants for potential third-party investors. The closure was initially announced for December 31, today it was brought forward "due to a technical problem" , the company said.
"An act of great incorrectness because it comes even before the technical meeting . We ask that the government take a position towards Glencore as the minister himself announced in the meeting at Mimit", declared the territorial secretaries of Filctem Cgil, Femca Cisl and Uiltec, Emanuele Madeddu, Vincenzo Lai and Pierluigi Loi.
Today's inspection is aimed at verifying the state of the plant in the context of the interest of third parties to take over or reuse sections of Portovesme srl that are currently inactive or underused.
«A slap in the face to workers, the Region and the Government that cannot go unpunished . Their coherence with the commitments made at the last meeting in Rome will be measured by the strength of the response that will come from the institutions», thunders the secretary of the Cgil Sardegna Fausto Durante .
"The multinational, even before the scheduled technical visit to understand how to relaunch the plant, in contempt of an entire territory, a region and the country in which it has made profits for decades, certifies its end, thinking it can leave behind rubble and without paying the price . In doing so, Glencore demonstrates a total lack of sense of social responsibility", he adds.
The institutions, Durante continues, " the national government first and foremost, have the tools to severely sanction the company and can no longer postpone the exercise of a strong role that up to now has not been fully exercised ".
Cisl Secretary Pier Luigi Ledda speaks of a "serious violation of the agreements" , with "heavy economic and employment repercussions for approximately 1,200 workers". A "unilateral decision that seriously compromises the possibility of access to the plants by potential investors interested in acquiring and relaunching the production activities, deeply undermines the relationship of trust between the parties involved and further endangers the already fragile social peace in the Sulcis Iglesiente area ", continues the trade unionist, who calls for "urgent intervention by the Government".
For now, the ministry's reaction is limited to a note: "The decision communicated by Glencore is unacceptable, provocative and incorrect . Unacceptable on the merits, because it blatantly contradicts what the company stated at the Mimit table . Incorrect and provocative in method, because it occurs precisely while a technical delegation from the Ministry is visiting the industrial site to assess its potential as agreed there. We will draw immediate consequences ."
(Unioneonline/L)