We support the ecological conversion model of the Gkn

In the key decade – as reaffirmed by the IPCC in its latest report – for ecological reconversion, in a historic moment of great disorientation, a dispute that started in a factory just outside Florence shows us a possible way, a feasible alternative to ferry us into a livable future refounded on the principles of climate and social justice.

The GKN dispute of Campi Bisenzio arises which, starting from the decision of the Melrose speculative fund – which took place in July 2021 – to relocate the production of drive shafts in a supply chain, that of the automotive industry, in a deep crisis, builds a very wide-ranging path with enormous value exemplary of comparison and convergence with social and environmental movements.

The irregular dismissal of GKN is rejected and supported by a national mobilization of 40,000 people in September 2021. Shortly thereafter, in December, the “Borgomeo phase” begins: the factory is in fact sold to a new owner who will envision industrial plans that do not exist until to February 2023, the moment of the liquidation of the Qf, i.e. Quattro effe (“Trust in the future of the Florence factory”) the new subject with a name that is a whole program of endless delays.

Until last October Borgomeo pays salaries but ignores the crisis tables, while the proposal drawn up by workers of the factory with the Sant’Anna University and the engineers in solidarity for a public pole of sustainable mobility is ignored.

Since November, as the factory collective effectively summarized, the “siege” begins: the stop to salaries and the unjustified request for layoffs which is rejected by the INPS, due to non-fulfilments in the documentation. In January, Borgomeo applied for the reorganization fund, continuing to ask for public funds without presenting any projects. Then in February 2023 comes the news of the liquidation of Qf.

In the meantime, the factory collective together with the Network of recovered companies, Fuori Mercato and Officine Corsare, has developed a further alternative: the creation of photovoltaic panels, thanks to the patent of a German start-up, and cargo bikes. Now, in a country without industrial planning, this is the moment in which we will see if the public side of the story (the Municipality, the Region, the Mise) will continue to be complicit in this squandering of human wealth.

With their initiative, the GKN workers have tried to reaffirm that another type of ecological transition is possible and above all that it is necessary to radically rethink the relationship between capital and labour, enhancing the latter, for too long dominated by choices oriented by profit logic. The ecological transition will affect all industrial sectors, but especially the automotive sector in Italy. Having to at least halve CO emissions₂ one of the priorities is the theme of transport, the first sector for emissions in our country, which has seen its emissions increase compared to 1990 data.

The theme – in a country where industrial policy has been completely eliminated – is therefore that there is a need to go back to thinking seriously about effective economic planning tools, which make employment protection possible, also guaranteed by the reduction of working hours at parity – indeed increasing, given the inflationary crisis – the already low wages, with the ecological transition. The need is for an ecological planned economy, which listens to the world of work, which, as in this case, has shown that it has all the credentials to self-determine its own future, therefore without industrial choices being delegated to councils of administration, which in the context of the globalized economy have lost all contact with the territory.

Why support this conversion project? Because for a world of work that has been suffering for too long, it is essential that workers regain their ability to be engines of change. Furthermore, in this case we are talking about a pioneering project that would involve workers’ knowledge in the production of photovoltaic panels, essential for the reduction of emissions in our energy sector – still hand-in-hand with fossil fuels – and for a strategy of re-appropriation of energy as a common good which provides for the development of solidarity energy communities in the various territories.

Furthermore, another key element of the project would be the ownership of the factory. In this case, the workers themselves would hold an important part of the capital, which would clearly make any process of internal democratization of roles much easier, with a reduction in wage hierarchies and experimentation with new decision-making models based on assemblies between workers and supporters popular.

The road is not easy. We need to give this project legs to make it walk towards a future made of social and climate justice. And all of us have legs, required to support GKN both in the square called for March 25 in Florence and in raising the funds necessary to give an alternative not to just one factory, but to an entire piece of society. This is why we will be in the streets as Fridays, to reiterate that it is time that if – as they say – the alternative does not exist, we will be the ones to produce it.

* Emanuele Genovese and Ferdinando Pezzopane are activists of Fridays for Future Italia