Update from GKN workers

For more on the GKN occupation and a link to the REELNews video check out this post.

On 9 July 2021, Melrose Industries announced the closure of its GKN Driveline (formerly FIAT) factory of car axles in Campi di Bisenzio, Florence, and the layoff of its workers (more than 400). While in many such cases the workers and unions settle for negotiating enhanced redundancy benefits, the GKN Factory Collective took over the plants and kick-started a long struggle against decommissioning. However, what makes the Ex GKN Florence dispute really unique is the strategy adopted by the workers, who sealed an alliance with the climate justice movement by drafting a conversion plan for sustainable, public transport and demanding its adoption. Such a strategy engendered a cycle of broad mobilisations – repeatedly bringing tens of thousands to the streets – so that the dispute is still open, and the permanent sit-in at the factory remains until today.

The workers were meant to be finally dismissed on 1 January 2024. The GKN Factory Collective had thus turned new year’s eve into a final call to action to defend their conversion plan. Such a pressure from below probably played a role in the labour court’s decision, announced on 27 December 2023, to overturn the layoffs for the second time. The 31 December 2023 concert in the factory and the subsequent nocturnal march across Campi Bisenzio’s industrial area became a mass mobilisation to relaunch the workers’ current plan to set up a cooperative for the production of cargo bikes and solar panels, as part of a broader vision for a worker-led ecological transition.

This project needs material solidarity now – over 600,000 euros have been collected by the popular shareholding campaign to launch the co-operative, moving closer and closer to the target of one million euros. All information on how to contribute, individually or as an organisation, can be found at the website www.insorgiamo.org.