[All links point to Italian sources except where otherwise stated].

On July 26, 2012, six operating facilities at Ilva, Europe's biggest steel plant situated in Taranto, Italy, were put under judicial seizure on the grounds of pollution. This is only the latest chapter of an ongoing struggle involving the plant's high pollution and environmental risks (and related occupational issues).

According to Wikipedia [en]:

In 1991 Taranto was declared a high environmental risk area by the Ministry of Environment. As a consequence of the poisons discharged into the air by the factories in the area (most notably the ILVA steel plant), Taranto is the most polluted city in Italy and western Europe. Only 7% of Taranto's pollution is inhabitants-related: 93% is factories-related. The European Pollutant Emission Register (EPER) showed that in 2004, estimated dioxin emissions from the ILVA plant were responsible for 83% of Italy's total reported emissions.

This is how Davide Maria De Luca describes the current situation:

Fondato nel 1961, è un impianto siderurgico a ciclo integrale, dove cioè avvengono tutti i passaggi che dal minerale di ferro portano all’acciaio. Il fulcro della produzione sono i cinque altoforni, dove viene prodotta la ghisa. Ognuno è alto più di 40 metri e ha un diametro tra 10 e i 15 metri: al momento quattro altoforni su cinque sono attivi.

The neighborhood of Tamburi, Taranto, opposite from Ilva. © Molnàr, used with permission

Emissions-related issues

The results of two investigations, undertaken in a trial against the owners and directors of Ilva, showed that over a span of seven years more than 11,000 people died and nearly 27,000 were hospitalized in and around Taranto for conditions whose origin could be linked to the emissions generated by the factory.

Due to this, the entire plant may shut down, leaving about 12,000 unemployed in the area of Taranto, a figure which equates to over 30% unemployment; Ilva Taranto is, by itself, responsible for 75% of the area's GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and 0.15% of Italy's.

The Italian government eventually decided to withdraw a formal complaint against the tribunal's decision to confirm the seizure, announced on August 7, while close to 1,000  people took the streets to acknowledge worker Cataldo Ranieri as leader of the protest against industrial pollution.

A reader of newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano explains in these terms the choices that the workers, even before the judges and government, have to make:

Morire di lavoro o morire perché non c'è lavoro?

Taranto, rally on August 2nd, 2012.  © Molnàr, used with permission.

Physicist and engineer Filippo Zuliani, from the Centre for Research and Development Tata Steel Europe, writes on his blog:

La vicenda dell’ILVA è complessa e dolorosa: da molti anni gli abitanti di Taranto sospettavano (eufemismo) dei problemi causati direttamente o indirettamente dallo stabilimento siderurgico, e le due perizie chimica e medico-epidemiologica disposte dal gip hanno liberato frustrazioni a lungo represse. Il sequestro dell’ILVA ripropone l’annosa dicotomia tra produzione e tutela dell’ambiente.

Zuliani adds that when national television news on channel TG3 asked a few workers of Ilva, ‘what would be the better choice: closing the factory or not’, they replied:

Non siamo noi che dobbiamo indicare la soluzione, noi rivendichiamo il nostro diritto a lavorare in sicurezza, in un ambiente sano per noi e per le nostre famiglie.

For others, worried about the environmental and medical consequences of Ilva's activity, there is no alternative but closing down the plant for good.

On Il Fatto Quotidiano, Fabio Balocco writes:

Se una fabbrica produce veleni deve essere chiusa, perché prima di tutto, e non lo dico io ma la Corte Costituzionale, viene l’ambiente e la salute. Prima di tutto, anche dell’economia e quindi anche del posto di lavoro.

On the other hand there are those who, even acknowledging the seriousness of the environmental situation, support the right to work and side with the workers who are opposing the closure of the plant, asking that the owners and directors of Ilva pay for the damage they caused, investing in the conversion of the factory.

Taranto's Ilva, November 2, 2010 @ 22.39. Photo by Ilaria Longo from Facebook

Expressing their “solidarity with the fighting workers of Ilva,” La Rete delle Reti writes:

Nessuna azienda deve essere chiusa, nessun lavoratore deve essere licenziato, a ogni adulto deve essere assegnato un lavoro utile e dignitoso. […] È possibile imporre sia la difesa dei posti di lavoro che la tutela della salute e dell’ambiente! Riva deve risarcire un intero territorio dei suoi crimini a scopo di lucro e i soldi dello Stato vanno usati per avviare immediatamente la bonifica del territorio impiegando tutti i lavoratori, i precari e i disoccupati del territorio

Online protests

Meanwhile, protests and discussions are firing up online, including several groups on Facebook, such as NO all’Ilva di Taranto and TARANTO dice NO a ILVA, ENI e CEMENTIR !!! the biggest, counting 2,450 members.

Writing on Global Project the founders of a “spontaneous and politically unaffiliated committee” called ‘Free and Thoughtful Citizens and Workers,’ accuse the State as well as Riva, for the current situation:

Siamo uomini e donne stanchi di dover scegliere tra lavoro e salute. Imputiamo all'intera classe politica di essere stata complice del disastro ambientale e sociale che da cinquant'anni costringe la città di Taranto a dover svendere diritti in cambio del salario. […] Pretendiamo che chi ha generato questo dramma, lo Stato prima, la famiglia Riva poi, paghi per il disastro prodotto.

Controappuntoblog.org lists the workers’ requests, from Operai Contro website, in a more direct fashion:

Noi operai dell’ILVA vogliamo il salario completo anche se l’ILVA deve restare chiusa per dieci anni per la bonifica.

The committee, together with the main local unions, organised a rally on August 2, explaining:

Tutti coloro che considerano una vergogna il ricatto occupazionale a cui siamo stati costretti fino ad oggi e che vogliono immaginare e costruire insieme un'altra idea di città, a scendere per strada e a sfilare dietro il nostro striscione: “Sì ai diritti, No ai ricatti: Salute, Ambiente, Reddito, Occupazione.

During the rally, however, there have been clashes between two different groups of unions and protesters – Cobas (independent unions) and the representatives of self-managed social centres have blocked the rally, using teargas to stop the other unionists from speaking, with the motto “no to those who poison.”

On August 4, Italy's government allocated, as an emergency measure, 336 million euro to upgrade the factory, and the Minister of Environment declared a decree law to accelerate the renovation of the plant. On August 7, the Tribunal of Taranto confirmed the seizure of the plant, allowing the factory to work only towards conversion.

Taranto rally of August 2, 2012. © Molnàr, used with permission

On Informare Per Resistere (Inform to resist) blog, Maria Ferdinanda Piva writes:

La bonifica promessa dal Ministro dell'Ambiente Clini sa tanto di bluff.

For many, hope is long gone. The son of a worker from Taranto who died of cancer writes in a comment to newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano with the pseudonym of 9Nuer:

Sono andato via da Taranto venticinque anni fa. Mio padre morto per un tumore al cervello, mio suocero per un cancro allo stomaco ( guarda caso due tipi di tumore che hanno provocato un incremento dei decessi, secondo la perizia medica ). […] Un consiglio alle nuove generazioni. Andate via. È doloroso, ma è la soluzione.

What will be the destiny of the workers and whether it will be possible to convert the plant has yet  to be seen. Meanwhile, the damages provoked by Ilva's operations this far won't cease to affect the population, who will pay with its health for many more years for the consequences of decades of pollution.