A new labor dispute opens in the city. Like a bolt from the blue, the dismissal letter arrived yesterday in the hands of four employees of the Ice-Pharma plant in via Sicilia. Which eliminates the research and development department of the Reggio Emilia branch of the well-known pharmaceutical company; founded in 1949 by the Bartoli family and sold, five years ago, to the American investment fund Advent: the workers kicked out were in fact all part of this sector. Already in the morning the employees of the city headquarters, around fifty, supported by Filctem-Cgil of Reggio, stopped production and organized a protest in front of the plant. To protest against the measure but also to express their concern regarding the very future of the Reggio structure. Also in light of the contents of the letter with which the dismissal was communicated: “The interruption of the trial and approval process of the drug Relyvrio – it is written – announced by the customer Amylyx, following the failure of the third clinical phase, entails significant negative repercussions on the turnover of our company… and on the financial resources available for research and development” hence the decision to “close the research centre” operating in Reggio and to “abolish all the positions of the working group”. It then adds: “Unfortunately within our organization there are no vacant positions in which to be relocated.” A letter that aroused understandable dismay among the employees, who find themselves out of work from one day to the next, but also in the union: “In practice – states Erica Morelli, secretary of Filctem – they make workers pay for wrong company strategies, and this It is unacceptable. We therefore ask for the immediate withdrawal of the layoffs. Furthermore, an entire department is closing, and this worries us greatly from a future perspective. A couple of months ago there were extensive reassurances regarding the employment prospects and now there are four layoffs in one one fell swoop. In our opinion – continues Morelli – this represents the beginning of a restructuring process which we fear could even lead to the closure of the Reggio plant”. The requests of the Ice workers were represented to the company top management in a meeting held yesterday afternoon. “As we feared, the company confirmed the four dismissals – Morelli reported – and we received evasive answers to our questions about the future”. On the Ice-Pharma front, the company, contacted for a reply, does not comment: “We prefer – the director of Human Resources, Chiara Mangiarini, told us – not to issue statements at the moment, in the workers’ own interest given that there is a procedure in progress”.
Gabriele Gallo
