On January 7, ArcelorMittal Italia announced to local unions that its plate mill at its Taranto facilites in the south of Italy will be restarted by mid-January, while a converter and a continuous caster, along with blast furnace No. 2, will be restarted by the end of the month in Taranto after being stopped last spring. Daily steel production will thus rise from 10,000 mt to 14,000 mt. In the meantime, temporary layoffs due to Covid-19 started last Monday for another twelve weeks for all employees at the Taranto plant. The reason remains the persistence of the reduction in work activity attributable to the pandemic. ArcelorMittal Italia closed 2020 with an annual production of 3.3 million mt, its lowest ever.
The reactions of trade unions to the steel producer’s announcement were not positive. Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) said it fears that "production numbers will soon fall again." In support of this opinion there is "a total lack of clarity in illustrating what will happen in the coming weeks," according to the union. With the restart of blast furnace No. 2, USB believes blast furnace No. 4 will be halted as it “presents absolutely precarious structural conditions. These are therefore changes that will develop over a period of only 20-25 days and then we willll return to the previous situation."