ABSTRACT
Since the summer of 2021, the workers of the ex-GKN in Campi Bisenzio (Florence, Italy) have been resisting the closure of their plant and fighting to establish a new form of environmentally sustainable production in Tuscany. Throughout, they have been struggling to achieve an ecological transition for the Italian industrial sector. Due to the intensity of their struggle, and the potential for institutional transformation it holds, the ex-GKN case contains echoes of Argentina’s empresas recuperadas movement (worker-recuperated enterprises, WREs) and Brazil’s Movimento Sem Terra (Landless Workers’ Movement, MST), rather than the older negotiated workers’ buy-outs (WBOs) that have existed in Italy for several decades. This has been the case even with the possibility in Italy of tapping into public funds and the legal recognition of WBOs for qualifying conversion projects via the Legge Marcora (Marcora Law) framework.
Our contribution highlights the main commonalities and differences of their recuperation process with the avenues forged by WREs and the MST for creating a worker cooperative. Via participant observation of the three reindustrialization plans envisioned and elaborated by the ex-GKN workers since 2021, this chapter offers an overview of their factory’s recovery strategy that merges industrial workers’ control with proposals for environmentally sustainable production. We pay particular attention to the new markets the ex-GKN workers have proposed entering, namely, the renewable energy sector and the provision of cargo bikes for sustainable and inclusive logistics. As of this writing , the struggle for sustainability continues at GKN.
