Four hundred workers of the
Whirlpool-Indesit plant in Carinaro staged a warehouse blockade
on Monday morning in continued protests over potential job cuts
that could affect 1,350 employees.
The warehouse, which is adjacent to the factory, serves as
both a storage and distribution point for products produced for
the American multinational in Carinaro, a town about a half hour
north of Naples.
UIL union said earlier that Whirlpool has warned that a
deal with Indesit will result in 1,350 job cuts to come,
including 1,200 factory jobs and 150 in research centres.
Another group of workers on Monday morning blocked the
entrance to a different warehouse that serves as a distribution
point for products that also include other brands.
Later on Monday, workers from the Carinaro plant staged a
blockade of the Marcianise-Giugliano highway in a repeat of an
action they took last Thursday.
Monday's highway blockade caused law enforcement to close
highway ramps, snarling traffic and creating long lines of
stalled traffic.
In last Thursday's blockade, workers desisted on
Friday ahead of a scheduled meeting that day with Campania
regional governor Stefano Caldoro.
On Saturday, Caldoro met in Pompeii with Premier Matteo
Renzi and labor union representatives for Whirlpool-Indesit,
after which he said Renzi had given assurance of his "personal
effort to make sure not even one job was lost," adding that 890
positions were at risk.
Caldoro also said an initial meeting between the company
and labor unions was scheduled for Monday, but later Monday
afternoon those meetings caved in when labor union officials
from three unions (Fim, Uilm, and Ugl) broke off the talks and
asked for the government to intervene to prevent closure of the
plants and job cuts.
A fourth union, Fiom, quickly followed suit.
"We suspended talks with the company after the other labor
union representatives left, telling the company we wouldn't
conduct talks without the others," said Michela Spera, the Fiom
delegate for the talks with Whirlpool.
Regarding the request for government intervention, Uilm
labor union secretary Antonello Accurso said, "The company, very
superficially, thought that we'd accept a plan that called only
for closures and cuts".
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
