About 2,000 employees of the Piombino, Livorno-based steel mill owned by Italian steel producer Lucchini are voting on Wednesday, March 7 on the job security deal the company has reached with labor union representatives.
According to the agreement, weekly working hours at Piombino will total 24.8 instead of 40. For the remaining 15.2 hours, employees will be paid 80 percent of their normal wage from social security funds, with 10 percent to be paid by the region of Tuscany. The new arrangement will be in force from March 12 this year to March 11, 2013, and will likely cover 1,943 employees.
At present, the capacity utilization of the Piombino-based steel mill does not even reach 40 percent, equal to an annual output of 1.2 million mt of crude steel. The goal of management is to bring the annual crude steel output back to 2 million mt. However, in order to achieve its aim Lucchini Group still needs to identify an industrial partner willing to repay all of its debts and to invest in the operational reorganization of the company.