Pfizer in Catania cuts investments and employees

The redundancy announced today by Pfizer to the trade union organizations amounts to 210 units,

Fedaisf editorial staff

February 4, 2022

"Pfizer Catania cuts investments and employees"

According to Ugl, the redundancy announced today by Pfizer to organizations amounts to 210 units trade unions, during a nationwide videoconference. “A decision that concerns the Catania production plant and which specifically affects 80 workers with temporary contracts who will not be renewed and about 130 actual employees who, in the first instance, will be offered the transfer to the Ascoli Piceno headquarters. Added to this is also a halving of investments, from a figure equal to just under 60 million euros annually, previously paid for the Catania production, to a sum of around 28 million euros which will only allow for the maintenance of the plants".

The union speaks of “a sudden turnaround, the one made by the multinational giant operating in the pharmaceutical sector, which the acronyms had already imagined in recent months when, in vain, they had requested a meeting. After a year and a half of silence, Catania gets the blow we feared, namely the reduction in production volumes and a simultaneous drastic cut in the commitment of sums, which should instead have guaranteed new productions. Like Ugl, we had already expressed concerns for some time considering that the transfer of an order elsewhere, in the absence of valid alternatives, made the loss of employment levels natural. These are highly specialized workers who, in all these years, have allowed the site several times to achieve important results and face inspections by regulatory bodies, obtaining the necessary international quality certifications".

Ugl underlines that “what was communicated by the management of Pfizer Italia is a bad tile for the work, the economy and the social fabric of the city of Catania and beyond, already strongly tested by the economic and pandemic crisis. A choice, which in this historical moment we do not understand, also in light of the volumes of business that the company has recorded in the last year. It is clear that it cannot always be those who work who have to pay the heavy costs of this industrial policy and we will fight to the end to obtain a review of the decision. Beyond this, we will ask for more attention for the Etna production unit since even today for the next three years there is no comforting news, other than those related to the maintenance of the current obsolete structures. We therefore confer the strike called for March 4 with CGIL and UIL ".

Source: La Sicilia Web – 3 febbraio 2022

Lavoro, CGIL, CISL and UIL on the Pfizer Catania plant: "Mobilization underway in view of the March 4 strike

Unthinkable weakening of plants and dismissal of personnel. Everyone raise their voice against illogical corporate choice”

L’ORA – 4 febbraio 2022

Catania -“Activities and mobilizations will start from today in view of the strike on 4 March. Pfizer cannot think of weakening the Catania plant".

The position of Femca Cisl, Filctem Cgil and Uiltec Uil is clear, in the aftermath of the meeting between the pharmaceutical multinational and the national secretariats of the trade unions.

"Yesterday 130 redundancies were announced for permanent employees, at the end of February the contract of 50 Ramstad employees who actually work for Pfizer will not be renewed and the freezing of 60 other positions pending the arrival of a new machinery following which the units will be reduced to 30” announce Jerry Magno, Giuseppe Coco and Alfio Avellino, general secretaries of Filctem Cgil Catania, Femca Cisl Catania and Uiltec Uil Catania, who underline the inconsistency of the company choices.

“Professionals of undisputed competence operate in the Etna plant – they add –. Instead of launching a relaunch, the multinational decided to run strategic plants on narrow gauge, also depriving itself of highly qualified personnel".

Pfizer has communicated to the unions that for the next 3 years 26 million euros will be allocated to the Catania plant, "a negligible amount - as Magno, Coco and Avellino underline - sufficient only for the maintenance of the plants". Filctem Cgil, Femca Cisl and Uila Uil ask that local, regional and national institutions also make their voices heard. “At stake is not only the fate of many workers – say the trade union confederations – but the entire economic and productive fabric of a territory. You cannot be silent. All the subjects involved in various capacities, intervene in defense of this important reality for Sicily ".

Press Com

BMJ extension 2022 ; 376 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2021-067367 (Posted January 31, 2022)

The announcement of the redundancies comes while the group is grinding billions in revenues and profits thanks to the vaccine against Covid, developed together with the German BioNtech, dominant on the market today. Drug for which the companies have received, in various forms, substantial public aid. During the year Pfizer has repeatedly revised upwards its estimates on revenues and profits thanks to the sale of vaccines. Fourth-quarter and full-year 2021 data will be released on February 8. In the first 9 months of 2021 the company registered revenues of $57 billion (50 billion euros), the 91% more of the same period of 2020. Vaccine receipts have risen in one year from 4.5 to almost 29 billion dollars. In the last year, the company's stock value has grown by 51% to $295 billion (source: The Fact of February 4, 2022)