Italy: The paradox of industrial strategy

Rome: Tommaso Grossi is an analyst in the European Policy Centre’s Social Europe and Well-Being Programme. Niccolò Barca is a freelance journalist and photographer based in Rome.

In early July 2021, amid the pandemic, more than 400 workers from the former GKN plant in Campi Bisenzio, Italy were suddenly laid off with an email sent in the dead of night.

The workers were stunned: The factory had been running well, new machinery had just been installed and management had even promised to hire more people. And yet, when they reached the factory gates that morning, all they found were private security guards blocking the entrance. So, they decided to occupy the factory in protest, resist the layoffs and call on the government to intervene.

Now, encouraged by a wave of support from civil society — as well as the realization that promises to restart the factory were going nowhere — the cooperative born out of this struggle is taking matters into its own hands, outlining a plan for sustainable bottom-up reindustrialization.

And yet, as of now, these former GKN workers have found little political support for their industrial plan.

The result of close collaboration between researchers, workers and professionals, this plan would see the former auto-part plant shift to the production, installation, recovery and recycling of solar panels, as well as the manufacturing of cargo-bikes — an innovative, sustainable solution that could save jobs, cater to growing private and public sector demands, all while perfectly aligning with the EU’s Green Deal Industrial Plan (GDIP).

Aimed at reshoring manufacturing capacity in energy-intensive and strategic sectors, the GDIP will inevitably require balancing economic competitiveness with sustainable practices, a massive reallocation of both capital and workers, as well as investment in green technologies and the skills required to produce them. As European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, the EU’s industrial plan is designed to “turn skills into quality jobs and innovation into mass production.”

So, as the cooperative’s negotiations with local and national government are protracted indefinitely — a strategy the former GKN workers believe is aimed at breaking their resolve — it’s hard to understand what could justify such inaction.

According to Leonard Mazzone, a researcher from the University of Florence and member of the solidarity group that prepared the plan, everything is ready to go: They’ve found and reserved the machinery needed to begin production, constructed the first prototypes for the cargo-bikes, and 62 percent of the solar panels the factory aims to produce in its first year have already been ordered.

Furthermore, through private investors and a popular shareholder scheme that collected over €1.3 million from Italy and abroad, the group has already found nearly €6.3 million out of the estimated €11.5 million needed to start production. The remaining €5.2 million would need to be raised through debt capital, but according to the business plan, the factory could open as early as February 2026.

According to Mazzone there are no excuses left. The business plan projects a healthy net profit that’s been duly underestimated, considering the demand for solar panel recycling is destined to increase. Furthermore, he believes the plant could carve out a niche for itself by focusing on the production of “custom” panels aimed at particular requirements.

What the former GKN workers are asking of their regional government is to become a partner in their plan and guarantee them the use of the Campi Bisenzio factory. This means public funding to save quality jobs and support innovative production in a strategic sector dominated by foreign competition — as promised by the GDIP.

And yet, for all the ongoing talk of revitalizing and greening Europe, company owners in Italy are allowed to relocate their businesses abroad rather than modernize and adjust at home.

Moreover, the center-left Democratic Party (PD) failed to anticipate or prevent the GKN plant’s closure — a particularly notable failure given the company’s decision to shut down despite being profitable. The party may be in opposition, but it still governs several of the country’s regions, including Tuscany. And despite the rise of its new leader Elly Schlein, who briefly met with the workers to express her solidarity, the PD hasn’t followed through on its promises.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had repeatedly criticized former governments for not defending national interests and jobs during her 2022 election campaign. And yet, her government has, unsurprisingly, done little to address the issue either. Rather, it has sold public enterprises to private funds like Blackrock, allowed relocations to take jobs out of the country and closed an eye to exploitative practices that increase competitiveness by cutting labor costs while doing very little to scale-up manufacturing capacity in green sectors.

This particular story of struggle has become symbolic of of the state of industrial policy in Italy as much as abroad. On one hand, it shows the way forward for a possible convergence between labor and environmental justice to ensure that a just ecological transition doesn’t mean imposing long-term unemployment on workers. On the other, it has highlighted the lack of a sustainable industrial strategy willing to harness knowledge and encourage production in key sectors.

As one of the cooperative’s leaders Dario Salvetti said, the GKN struggle has exposed the paradox of “a factory with no industrial plan and an industrial plan with no factory.” We’re about to see if the political will to resolve it exists.