Month: December 2025

REELNews Xmas appeal

Crunch time for GKN, the most advanced worker led transition struggle in history 

XMAS APPEAL: Crunch time for GKN, the most advanced worker led transition struggle in history 

The battle by ex-GKN workers in Florence to convert their autoparts factory to zero carbon production under workers control is at a critical stage – and you can help. Find out how below and watch a video of the story of this historic struggle so far – PLUS the latest from the most important strike in Britain, a siginificant victory for education workers in Bristol, and what you can do to help prisoners on hunger strike for Palestine
GKN: Cash urgently needed to start production under workers control

Click here to watch video of the story so far (30 min version)
Click here to watch 5 min version

Those of you who have been following the incredible just transition struggle of ex-GKN workers in Florence (and if you haven’t, you can catch up by watching the video above) will know that the regional council have been stalling on their commitment to put together a consortium to buy the factory off the current owners and hand it to the workers to produce cargo bikes and solar panels – all under workers control, and for the benefit of communities, not for profit.

Now, after delaying the process for months – increasing the suffering of the workers who have now had no wages for 15 months – it’s fallen apart.

The main reason seems to be the drive to war and the increase of arms spending across Europe, with most of the banks who agreed to fund the project now demanding that the workers produce weapons rather than zero carbon products based on equality and social justice. And as the workers point out, “the former GKN is an example they can’t afford. Because a conscious community, insurgent, through the convergence of social and climate justice shows that an alternative would be possible.”

So now the workers have made the decision to go it alone and do everything themselves. Which means raising substantial sums of money from our own workers organisations, social movements and civil society.

CLICK HERE TO READ FULL STATEMENT AND EXPLANATION BY THE WORKERS


WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP

1) Make a donation to the workers’ crowdfunder, which has a target of 2 million euros. You can make a donation by clicking here. So if you were looking for somewhere to donate to for Xmas, this is the place!

2) If your trade union branch or organisation, or a collection of individuals can afford 500 euros, that’ll buy you a share in the workers cooperative and be part of the assembly that will collectively run the factory if the workers win.
CLICK HERE TO BUY A SHARE

IMPORTANT: IF YOUR GROUP HAS ALREADY PLEDGED TO BUY A SHARE, CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE TO PAY THE 500 EUROS FOR IT

And a warning: the form to buy shares is not easy to fill in. Having just done it to buy the share for the UK rank and file workers delegation that visited Florence last year, we can give you some help below; if you’re still having trouble, please feel free to email us at info@reelnews.co uk and we can talk you through it.

If you’re not in Italy, fill it in as an individual, not as an organisation. If you try to do it as, for example, a trade union branch, you’ll get a load of questions that are impossible to answer because our union branches are not set up in the same way legally as Italian union branches. So you’ll have to pick a trusted individual who doesn’t mind paying the 500 euros out of their personal bank account and then getting it back from the branch.

Most of the questions are meaningless – but what you answer doesn’t matter. The questions are obiously geared to a generic shareholder issue for companies – but don’t worry about the fact that none of the answer choices fit your situation, just pick anything – the answers seem to be completely irrelevant, so for example there’s no need to reveal your financial circumstances.

When you get to the page that says “send link to continue on your phone, or scroll down to continue, choose the phone option. You’ll findthat it’s actually impossible to scroll down, so in fact you have to continue you on your phone – which is actually just to take a picture of your passport as proof of identity. Once you’ve done that, it’ll return you to your computer.

Once you’ve finished this part, you’ll have to wait for another email to set up payment. This comes in a few minutes, but then once you’ve set up payment (bank transfer seems to be easiest), you’ll have to wait for up to 48 hours for it all to be cleared to actually transfer the 500 euros.

Hopefully that hasn’t put any of you off! But if it feels daunting, please get in touch – we’ve done it and can help you do it very quickly. 

We’ll leave the last word to the workers: “After 4 years of struggle, 15 months without a salary, and 8 months of unemployment, all may seem lost. But at the same time, it may all be enough to claim that, “after all, we won”. The lessons we can learn from this struggle are enormous, its historical legacy will not fade away, and its example will speak for years to come. Then, why insist (on continuing the struggle)? Because we cannot afford to lose this fight and “they” cannot afford to let us win. Because it started with the “simple” aim to keep the factory open, but ended up exposing every “systemic” issue that is dragging us towards the catastrophe today.”

Mossmorran briefing

Briefing on the proposed closure of the Exxon Mobile Plant at Mossmorran

Brian Parkin provides background on the proposed closure of the Exxon Mobile Plant at Mossmorran

Fife Ethylene Plant, Image by Richard Webb CC BY-SA 2.0

ExxonMobil has announced plans to close the Fife Ethylene Plant (FEP) at Mossmorran in Fife in February next year. Up to 400 jobs will be lost if the closure goes ahead.

The announced closure of the gas treatment plant closure may have consequences upstream for its supply terminal at St Fergus in Northern Aberdeenshire. St Fergus is the landfall terminal for all the gas produced in the Central and Northern UK Continental Shelf fields and the recently opened North Atlantic West of Shetland fields. It also receives gas from the Western Norwegian sector.

  • Gas at St Fergus is primarily treated ‘fractioned’ to a standard acceptable for distribution through the UK National Transmission Authority network, which in turn supplies further treated gas into the National Grid.  The treatment plant at Mossmorran receives the entirety of its ‘wet’ gas from St Fergus.
  • The site and plant of Mossmorran is jointly owned and operated by Exxon/Mobil and Shell UK.
  • The wet gas at Mossmorran is divided into two separate product streams: 
  • Shell separates liquids further to produce methane vial its Fife Natural Gas Plant which is sent into the National Grid network, as well as some chemical feed-stocks for export.
  • Exxon/Mobil uses an ethylene plant to ‘fraction’ the wet gas into ethylene as a feed-stock for petro-chemicalproduction via its Fife Ethylene Plant as well as:
  • Propane, butane and other liquid gases for further treatment for fuels and also grease and other lubricants.
  • Last year Exxon/Mobil produced over 830,00 tonnes of ethylene, over 50% of which was exported to Europe and the US. Until recently Exxon/Mobil used a direct pipeline to Ineos Grangemouth plant.

Braefoot Bay is a private facility which handles almost all of the output of the two Mossmorran operations, and is presently at 85% capacity. It operates under the joint ownership of Exxon/Mobil and Shell UK and is entirely dependent on the export requirements of Mossmorran.  The port has two jetties- a deep-water jetty capable of handling 40,000- 80,000 tonne vessels, and the smaller, for 5,000- 10,000 tonne tankers.

The main tanker loading is via floating ‘roof’ tanks are continuously ‘toped-up’ from large quayside storage tanks.

At Mossmorran, there are around 90 directly employed in control rooms and plant management.  with most engineers, electrical and welders etc being subcontractors directly employed with Balfour Beatty. Virtually all Balfour Beatty workers are members of Unite.