Reportage
‘We want to work’: The cry of the steelworkers in Genoa
Marching with the workers was also Genoa mayor Silvia Salis, who has been joining their protests for days. She calls her presence at the protests a matter of duty and indispensable.
The workers’ anger and frustration over a bleak future were summed up in a few words shouted at the police behind barricades and shields: “You’ll have to arrest us all. We want to work!”
These words came at the moment of highest tensions in Thursday’s march by workers from the former ILVA steelworks in Genoa’s Cornigliano neighborhood, on the day of the general metalworkers’ strike, when the workers clashed with police in front of the Prefecture. First, they banged their yellow helmets against the bars protecting the government building; then smoke bombs were thrown, to which officers responded with tear gas. One canister hit a worker in the head. Then the workers breached the barriers with an industrial forklift, ending with the occupation of two platforms at Brignole station.
On the fourth day of unrest in Genoa – which in recent days has seen the occupation of Colombo Airport and a march on the highway up to the San Giorgio Bridge (built after the infamous collapse of the Morandi Bridge) – tensions remain high.
There were more than 5,000 workers protesting in the streets on Thursday according to the unions (4,000 according to the DIGOS special operations police). The city was locked down and the Prefecture had been designated as a red zone. The demonstration started with a banner reading: “Genoa fights for industry.” Behind it were the flags of the FIOM and FIM-CISL unions.
“Right now we have very little work,” a resigned tin-cycle worker told us, who has worked at the plant since 1998, “even though we are the ones who, in theory, should be working a little more.” Among the workers in blue overalls marching, there was bitterness at having reached such a low point with “the presentation of a plan that effectively intends to shut down the verticalization processes – the processing that happens after the coil is made in Taranto,” explained another worker wearing a FIOM sweatshirt.
The morning rang out with the slogans “Genoa is ILVA, ILVA is Genoa.” The protest certainly would not end here, as Matteo told us from behind the wheel of a dito (“finger”) – the industrial forklift used to move steel coils: “We will keep going until they give us an answer.” As the march proceeded from Cornigliano to the center of Genoa, everything went smoothly. But when the demonstrators arrived in front of the police deployment, tensions exploded: “Shame on you!” “You make us sick!” followed by chants against the government and Minister Adolfo Urso.
Immediately after the clashes came a denunciation from the CGIL union: “We are shocked and concerned by what happened today in Genoa, and we are asking the Prefect for an explanation of what happened, not only to the demonstrators but to the whole city: why the march’s arrival at the Prefecture was prevented and why demonstrators were hit by tear gas fired at head height. Worsening tensions at such a critical moment for labor, and against workers demanding to keep their jobs, is a very serious matter.”
The reason behind the protest was explained succinctly by Armando Palombo of FIOM-CGIL, also marching amidst the workers: “The production chain between Taranto and Genoa must not be broken. Because that would be the death of the Italian steel industry.”
Marching with the workers was also Genoa mayor Silvia Salis, who has been joining their protests for days. She calls her presence at the protests a matter of duty and indispensable. “Tomorrow [Friday, n.ed.] we’ll go to Rome to ask not only for the 45,000 tons they promised us so we can get through the end of February, but first and foremost we will ask that the dispute be put before the higher-ups. Answers are needed, especially about the future. The state must join this tender so that if it doesn’t find buyers, there is still a continuity in production that would keep these plants an attractive option. And so it doesn’t become a war between the hubs of the North and Taranto. If there is no government plan, we ask ourselves: what will happen to our former ILVA workers? What will be produced in Genoa? Are we giving away another piece of industry, one of the last Italian ones? We just want answers. Minister Urso’s answers did not meet our expectations.”
Regional president Marco Bucci also made an appearance at the station: “We continue to work so that steel is produced in Italy; what we’re doing in Genoa, we’re doing for Italy. We will continue to fight so that special steel keeps being produced in Genoa – this is the goal.”
On Friday he was also set to go to Rome, but he tamped down any optimistic expectations: “I can’t tell you I will come back a winner, but I’ll tell you that we’re working for this goal every day. We’re working with Taranto so the material arrives in Genoa, but we must begin to work with other producers too, to have other steel supplies available here that can be transformed into tinplate and galvanized steel.”
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Urso – in a video link with the Piedmontese local institutions – reassured that “there is no plan for closure [of the ILVA plant]. Quite the opposite, there is one for relaunch and productive recovery.” The workers who returned to Cornigliano on Thursday afternoon and remained there awaiting the outcome of Friday’s meeting in Rome will be the judges of that.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/vogliamo-lavorare-il-grido-degli-operai-di-genova on 2025-12-05