Meeting in Unindustria on the 192 layoffs announced by the multinational at the Sermoneta plant (Latina). The company is open to the use of social safety nets, which have always been excluded until now. A "demonstration for work" has been called for the next few days
Union Review – 3 December 2018
A difficult dispute, which keeps 192 workers anxious (out of a total of 491), equal to 40 percent of the entire workforce. On 9 November Corden Pharma, a pharmaceutical company from Sermoneta (Latina), announced the start of the collective redundancy procedure, which should become effective in January. For these redundancies, the group has not yet foreseen the use of social safety nets, even if it has agreed to evaluate the measure, as instead requested by Filctem Cgil, Femca Cisl, Uiltec Uil, Ugl Chimici and Confail. To try to resolve the situation, a meeting between the trade unions and company management has been called for today (Monday 3 December) at the headquarters of the Industrial Association of Latina.
The situation is further aggravated by the initiation of the continuity arrangement procedure (which would open the way, if no solutions are found, also to the possible bankruptcy of the company) of which the Court has appointed the two "curators", from the cut of future salaries by 15 percent and from the only partial payment of the arrears. Finally, it should be noted that Corden failed to present the industrial plan to the competent ministries. A very complicated crisis situation, which, as the company reaffirmed in a press release in recent days, offers no other avenues than that of the composition with creditors in continuity.
The crisis table met in Sermoneta on Wednesday 28 November, in the presence of the trade unions, the Lazio Region and the mayors of the Municipalities of Sermoneta, Sezze, Norma and Latina. First of all, the defendants have called a "labour demonstration" to be held after today's meeting in front of the factory gates, in which they invite all the institutions and the entire citizenry to participate. Local authorities and trade unions have agreed to "keep the table constantly active and attention to the story around which much of the productive and employment future of the entire territory is played out".
The common goal "is work, understood not only as a slogan, but as a common social and economic perspective". Municipalities and trade unions ask the owners that "clarity be clarified on the future of the plant: clarity is essential in order to be able to prefigure a perspective for the workers, the related industries involved, the environmental protection of the site and any production prospects". Lastly, they undertook to intervene with the ministries concerned and the Lazio Region "so that possible measures concerning both the overall crisis area and the use of social safety nets are activated", but also with the Court "so that it can be activated as soon as possible approval of the agreement in the time possible in order to guarantee the workers' salaries”.
Corden Pharma was founded in 2006 as a private pharmaceutical brand of the International chemical investors group (Icig). It owns three plants in Italy – Bergamo, Caponago (Monza) and Sermoneta (Latina) – and another six in Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany and the United States. The Sermoneta plant was acquired by the multinational in 2010, previously it was owned by the American Bristol Myers Squibb. According to reports from the group, the site loses around 28 million euros annually, and over the last few years it has already undergone heavy restructuring, with the consequent decrease in staff.
