GKN assembly outside factory

In October, members of a dozen UK trade unions, including the FBU, took part in a thirty-strong UK solidarity delegation to Italy. FBU member Sacha Ismail and labour movement activist Dave Smith share their experiences in this blog.

We went to support workers at the former GKN factory at Campi Bisenzio, on the outskirts of Florence, who for three years have been fighting for their jobs, their community and the planet. 

The FBU has played a prominent role in supporting their struggle in the UK, and we encourage members to educate themselves about this fight and discuss the implications for our struggles here. If you can, invite a speaker from the UK solidarity group or from the factory itself; and look out for ways to show support for the Campi Bisenzio workers in the crucial coming weeks and months. 
 
Occupying for jobs – and the planet 

In 2021, UK-based automotive and aerospace components firm GKN was taken over by asset-stripper Melrose Industries. There immediately followed a series of job cuts and plant closures globally, including in Birmingham where Unite members struck unsuccessfully to defend jobs while promoting a plan for alternative production; and in Florence, where 400 workers faced redundancy. But in Campi Bisenzio, the workers occupied the factory and, in standing up for themselves, also sparked a movement of wider reach and significance, under the slogan Insorgiamo (“We rise”). 

 
Rallying the local labour movement in demonstrations and campaigning, they also linked up with the climate justice movement and developed their own plan for alternative, green production. As Reel News, the organisers of the UK solidarity delegation, explain:

What started out as a standard industrial dispute to save jobs has transformed into a visionary rank-and-file worker-led movement for just transition, with a reindustrialisation plan to move from producing parts for luxury cars, to solar panels and cargo bikes.


 As the workers themselves put it:

...this resistance has become a project…it has given birth to a reindustrialisation plan from below, with the aim of giving back to the territory the jobs that were destroyed, creating a socially integrated factory at the service of the community that defended it, restarting with an ecologically advanced production.

The existence of Collettivo di Fabrica – Lavoratori GKN Firenze (Factory Collective – GKN Firenze Workers), a rank-and-file collective within the Campi Bisenzio plant with a long history of militancy, was a key factor in the collective action. Workers do not generally occupy the factory of a multinational corporation on a whim. Their confidence was built up over years of grassroots union opposition to big business.   
 
There is a history of this kind of struggle in the UK – most famously during the workplace occupations of the 1970s, notably at Lucas Aerospace in 1976. More recently the 2009 Vestas workers’ occupation on the Isle of Wight again posed the links between workers’ struggles, jobs and climate justice. With huge job cuts taking place or threatened across UK industry, now is exactly the right time to revive that tradition; and the Florence struggle is full of lessons and inspiration. 
 
Repeatedly over more than three years the ex-GKN occupiers have faced losing control of their factory, but have pushed back and successfully defended their ability to continue the struggle. After more than three years it is hard. The fact the workers have now not been paid for over five months is only one of a long list of challenges. The recent election of a far-right government in Italy is a significant blow to the dispute. The GKN workers’ struggle may now be reaching a crunch point. 

 
Building solidarity 

The FBU played an important part in preparing the ground for the solidarity delegation. At September’s TUC Congress FBU delegate and EC member Jamie Newell used his speech in the climate change debate to promote the GKN Florence struggle and bring it to a wider labour movement audience. FBU National Officer Riccardo la Torre – whose advocacy for this struggle Jamie cited – took part in the planning of the delegation. This on the basis of the EC’s decision both to donate to the UK solidarity campaign and to buy shares in the cooperative the Campi Bisenzio workers are setting up to try to carry out their plan. 
 
The workers plan depends on “public intervention” by the Tuscan regional government to give them full control of the factory, or of an adequate alternative site – which they are still fighting for. But if this succeeds, they will need funds to renovate the factory and convert it to producing green technology. Hence launching a “popular shareholder” scheme which has received support from unions, social movement organisations and individuals across Europe and beyond, raising around €1.5 million. 

 
A weekend of solidarity 

On the weekend of 12-13 October two large assemblies were held. On the Saturday a wide and varied group of supportive organisations and activists, from across the region, Italy and Europe, discussed the politics of the struggle. Sunday’s assembly was predominantly ex-GKN workers and their local supporters. At the latter shareholding organisations also got to vote on the workers’ plan for taking the struggle forward. This showed the beginnings of what workers’ control of industry could look like.  
 
On the Saturday night a packed panel discussion on the relationship between workers’ struggles and climate struggles focused on transport workers. Speakers included a member of the sizeable contingent sent by RMT on London Underground and a leading activist in a German climate movement, Wir Fahren Zusammen (We Travel Together), that organises schools students and public transport workers to strike alongside each other.  

 
Emphasising their commitment to wider working-class solidarity, on the Sunday evening the ex-GKN comrades took us to a nearby industrial estate to support a group of mainly Pakistani workers in dispute with a Chinese clothing company over working hours. These workers, fighting for an 8 hour day and 5 day week in place of the current 60 hours-plus, have had their picket lines attacked by group with iron bars, with four workers hospitalised. The attackers are believed to have mafia and fascist connections. With at least a thousand demonstrating for hours on Sunday night it was an impressive show of solidarity and unity. 
 
It was also a reminder that workers in different countries face a common struggle, but with different specifics and challenges. Italy has fewer anti-union and anti-strike laws than ours for instance, but a far greater threat of violence against workers by the police, the far right and organised criminals. 

 
The weekend we visited was full of energising and thought-provoking discussions about a wide range of working-class issues – above all about the role of workers’ organisation and struggle in the fight in the fight for a socially just and democratic climate transition. At a time when employers and governments worldwide are attacking workers’ livelihoods, our communities and the policies necessary for tackling the climate crisis, trade unions need to draw lessons from Florence.  
 
These are the kind of discussions we need to ramp up in our labour movement in the UK. 
 

Support the workers 

After more than three years of struggle, the Florence campaign may be coming to a head. The workers could gain full control of the factory, or gain an alternative site for production; or they may lose control, and lose. They have set a deadline of 17 November to assess the progress of their fight and decide next steps. 
 
Support the workers and the movement they have launched! 

Sacha Ismail is an FBU member in London. He is also a member of UNISON, and Environment Officer for UNISON’s LFB branch. 
 
Dave Smith is a labour movement activist, educator and author who was blacklisted from the construction industry. At FBU conference this year he was awarded our Solidarity Medal.

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