Over 60 activists joined the Zoom meeting for international supporters. Approximately 500 were in attendance at the factory, including 30 trade unionists and supporters from Britain via the GKN solidarity network (see Morning Star article). ACR has contributed £1,500 to the people’s share fund.
The political intervention by Dario Salvetti at the beginning of the session outlined a brief history of the struggle. He skilfully explained the tension between aligning the project with a political struggle for a just transition and the tactical need for such a project to deal with the realities of capitalism. For the project to succeed, the business plan had to be based on the ability of the new workforce to generate enough surplus to sustain it over the long term.
This was reinforced by the second main speaker, who explained, with detailed slides, how the plan would work. What struck me was how a group of workers, supported by technical experts and academics, were able to collaborate and produce such a plan outside of the normal capitalist channels. It demonstrated the potential that can be unleashed by ordinary people. Also, against all the pessimism experienced after decades of defeats for the labour movement, it showed that another world is possible. The figures and spreadsheets were truly impressive – there is a five-year plan, and there are no illusions about how fast their sales would grow. The baseline is set at a realistic level. Nevertheless, the start-up money is crucial; losses in the first years have to be sustained.
Building a Credible Business
Ex-GKN workers do not see themselves as building an island of socialism in a sea of capitalism. They aim to survive with a credible business but run it differently from a normal capitalist one. Salaries are not hierarchical but are broadly the same between workers producing the goods and technical/admin staff. They are conscious that the general ecosocialist struggle must continue. Reaching out to other workers and supporting other struggles has been part of their DNA. At the end of the conference, they encouraged people to join them in supporting strikers in Prato who are being super-exploited by Chinese-owned clothing companies. Spreading the ideas and the problems they are confronting is very important. Providing living examples of elements of a fairer, socialist society is not a fad but vital for all of us.
Ricardo Chiari reported today on the weekend conference for the left daily Il Manifesto. We have translated some extracts of his article:
“We want to reindustrialise this factory and remove it from potential speculative logic and land consumption,” explains Salvetti. “Today we do not see how this can be done except through ecologically advanced production, such as those we have in our industrial plan. This is also the idea, evidently, of a vast international climate movement that, with the symbolic presence of Greta as well, shows that the opposition between work and environment has not only never existed as far as we are concerned, but exists less and less. In a situation of crisis for entire industries such as automotive and even fashion, we believe that climate jobs, the jobs created by the climate transition, are the only solution.”
“Today we are using direct democracy as a form and tool to re-appropriate the possibility of re-industrialisation,” Salvetti continues, “because here we have a factory without an industrial plan and, paradoxically, an industrial plan of our own that is without a factory. This situation can only be explained by the logic of property speculation.” And what about politics? “Politics is divided into three. There are those who openly oppose the idea of a bottom-up reindustrialisation of the former GKN. Then there are those who support us but who will not take action; they drag their feet. It is like saying that the operation was successful but the patient died. I would like to remind you that we have been without pay for 10 months. Finally, there is a small part that supports us, and that in recent years has helped to create a community of solidarity that has led to results such as the popular shareholding.” (…)
There are English union delegates who speak of the former GKN workers’ struggle as “a ray of hope.” Eliana of Mondeggi Bene Comune, a successful experience of occupying disused farmland that has been brought back to life, explains how their crops based on agro-ecology represent a possible solution in an industry that makes extensive use of fossil fuels and water, and is most affected by climate change. The young activists of the Ultima Generazione (Last Generation) are present, and Tommaso thanks the workers for what they are doing: “We have decided that this future belongs to us,” he concludes, “and we want to think about it together.” Almost all the speeches ended with the cry “Free Palestine.”
Jacopo Storni from Corriere della Sera (14.10.24) reported Greta’s statement, our translation:
“Workers cannot be left behind in the process of ecological transition, no one can be left behind, this also means climate justice.”
Greta Thunberg
These are the words of solidarity that Swedish activist Greta Thunberg addressed to the workers of the former GKN during the assembly at the factory in Campi Bisenzio, Florence.
“I express my deepest gratitude,” said the climate activist, “to all of you who are here because everyone in their own way is trying to create a better world. Workers cannot be left behind in the process of ecological transition, no one can be left behind, this also means climate justice.”
And then, again addressing the factory workers:
“Thank you for drawing the connections between the workers’ human rights movement and the climate and social justice movement because we know that we are fighting against the same destructive system that puts people and the world below economic profit.”
And finally:
“We must stand together because this is the only way we can win against this capitalist system.”
Greta Thunberg
Salvatore Cannavò – former senator for Rifondazione Comunista (Communist Refoundation – a radical left group which at that time had around 8% electoral support) who also voted against the Prodi government’s support for imperialist war, has written this for the national daily newspaper, Il Fatto Quotidiano on 11 October 2024 just prior to the conference. Translated by Dave Kellaway.
“Greta Thunberg is going to GKN. And if once upon a time there was unity between ‘the students and the workers,’ today, in the 21st century, this unity is even broader, embracing the environment, ecological sustainability, and the planet. The factory collective has called for a three-day event at the GKN factory.
After the dismissal of 430 workers in July 2021, the workers stubbornly decided to resist and to ‘reindustrialise’ the factory, to relaunch it with a cooperative and popular, ‘ecologically advanced’ project.
On Saturday 12 October, discussion will revolve around the question, “Do we need an Estates General (cf. 1789 French Revolution) for climate and social justice?” The idea that a possible future for a plant that produced automotive components and which was once part of the Fiat empire would be based on environmental sustainability has become the rallying call of the struggle.
If the factory is reborn – and it will partly depend on the final assembly on Sunday, as explained below – it will be an ecological, sustainable factory, integrated into the local community, linked to the production of renewable energy, sustainable mobility, and ecological recycling.
Hence the presence of Greta at the event. She is the emblem of youth mobilisation for the environment and the protection of the planet. Her visit is highly symbolic of the project to relaunch production, which will be based on a people’s shareholding. Thousands have responded enthusiastically to the appeal of the factory collective and the Workers’ Mutual Aid Society “Insorgiamo”. The initial request for ‘shares’ was one million by 30 September; by that date, it had reached £1,250,000. Discussions are underway to issue a new package of ‘solidarity shares’.
The success of the share issue does not mean that everything will go smoothly; quite the contrary. Francesco Borgomeo’s business took over the plant from the hedge fund Melrose, which abandoned the plant on 9 July 2021 and has never presented any relaunch project, opting to put it into liquidation. The government minister responsible, Adolfo Urso, has remained silent and has taken no initiative to help the workers.
The Tuscany regional council, chaired by Eugenio Giani, claims solidarity on paper but has so far not taken any significant steps to resolve the dispute. “Our situation is always the same: nine months without pay,” writes the GKN Collective, “our interlocutors have disappeared, the summer break has been used by the bosses to stall for time.”
Yet it would be enough for the council to enact the legislative proposals made by the workers to unblock the situation. These workers have had wages stolen, their lives have been put under tremendous stress, and they have suffered threats and intimidation. The site is an attractive target for property speculation if the occupation is cleared.
The £1,250,000 fund has been made up of both individual donations and contributions from progressive associations such as the youth cultural groups (ARCI) and those keeping alive the memory of the anti-fascist partisan struggle (ANPI). Trade union branches and political groups here and internationally have also contributed. If you add to this fund the promises made by other mutual aid, cooperative, and credit institutions, then the finance could well be there for a sustainable development project along five axes:
- Production and marketing of monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic panels;
- Installation of photovoltaic panels;
- Recycling of used photovoltaic panels;
- Production and commercialisation of cargo-bikes, with the formation of a consortium for ‘light’ mobility to make up for the dispersion of small producers in the sector;
- Provision of technical and administrative services to companies that will become part of the industrial network.
The plan would employ around 150 people (most of the workers employed in July 2021 have now left the factory) and, in addition, “offer an entrepreneurial opportunity to other industries in the area” and “create new job opportunities for the employees of the former GKN thanks to concierge, canteen, cleaning, and administration.”
This overall strategy comes directly from the workers, from academics in solidarity, particularly from the S.Anna University of Pisa, and from activists who in these three years have gathered around this struggle. They will meet from 11 to 13 October, starting with the Friday for Future on 11 October, then the Estates General of Climate Justice, and finally, on Sunday 13, with the popular shareholders assembly, at the end of which will be the demonstration in Seano supporting workers in Prato (not far from the GKN factory) who have been subjected in recent days to violence from their bosses.
“The ecological transition is not a technical process but a social and political one,” notes the factory collective, “and it will either be the engine for different power relations, of awareness of the inevitability of ecological transition from below, or it will not be any transition at all.”
GKN holds this flag high; Greta Thunberg is coming to support it.
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