According to local press reports, the special commissioners of the former Ilva plants, now Acciaierie d’Italia, have asked Italy’s labor ministry for a further 12-month extension of the extraordinary layoffs of 4,450 workers, starting from March 1, 2026.
This request comes at a time of serious production and financial difficulties: blast furnaces Nos. 1 and 2 are shut down for extraordinary maintenance, leaving only blast furnace No. 4 in Taranto operational. In addition, the current annual production capacity of 1.5-1.8 million metric tons is not sufficient to cover fixed costs. Furthermore, as reported by Italian daily newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, coke production has been at a standstill for a couple of weeks due to the “replacement of the catalytic reactor in the desulfurization plant for the treatment of coke oven gas”, which is expected to be completed in April.
The workers involved and the unions’ request
Layoffs have been requested for 4,450 of Acciaierie d’Italia’s total of 9,700 employees. Of those affected, 3,803 of them work in Taranto, 280 in Genoa, 170 in Novi Ligure, and smaller numbers at other sites.
In a statement released on February 3, the Fim, Fiom, and Uilm unions called for the redundancy fund to be “functional to a recovery plan, with maintenance workers at work and the plants in operation, exactly as defined in the shared restart plan”.
However, the only recent development dates back to November 18, 2025, when negotiations began between the commissioners of Ilva As and Adi As and the Flacks Group investment fund, in which the workers’ representative groups do not seem to have been really involved.
The note continues with a clear request to the government: “Reopen the talks at Palazzo Chigi [Italian prime ministry], the only place where such a complex dispute can find a shared and socially sustainable solution.” The next step would be the start of mandatory union negotiations, aimed at defining a clear path to protect employment.