Premier Matteo Renzi said Thursday he was "extremely concerned" about the situation at ThyssenKrupp's Acciai Speciali Terni (AST) stainless steel plant in Terni, Umbria, after talks between the company and labour unions over proposed job cuts broke down.
"The government's proposal for mediation was not accepted, the sides remain too far apart," said Renzi in reference to efforts to reach a compromise over plans by the German steel giant to lay off 550 workers as part of a restructuring programme. Debora Serracchiani, Friuli-Venezia Giulia governor and deputy secretary of Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD), reiterated the government's commitment to resolving the dispute, which saw intervention from Pope Francis on behalf of the threatened AST workers in September.
"The site has all the conditions for continuing production - the government will not give up, it will continue negotiations to bring home a result," Serracchiani said.
On Thursday Umbria Governor Catiuscia Marini urged "all sides, and particularly the company, to keep talking during this extremely delicate phase in the discussions and to avoid taking unilateral action that might risk undermining efforts made so far, in addition to needlessly raising the level of social tension". In July steelmaker ThyssenKrupp announced a new industrial plan for its wholly owned subsidiary AST including cost reductions of over 100 million euros a year and job cuts.
Under the plan the second furnace was also to be shut down by 2015-2016, ThyssenKrupp said at the time.
However in August the company accepted a government appeal to put the plan on hold so talks could take place following industrial action.
AST is one of three troubled industrial plants at the centre of government attention.
The others are the ILVA steel plant in the southern port city of Taranto and the former Fiat auto assembly plant at Termini Imerese in Sicily.
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