Jabil Workers' Struggle and Future Prospects Amid Production Crisis

Union representatives of the metalworkers dealing with the dispute of the US multinational Jabil, with a plant in the industrial area of Marcianise, have been summoned to the Mimit for next April 11th (10 am). The discussion will focus on the wage guarantee fund expiring next May 31st, but above all on the future prospects of the site, which has been going through a production crisis that in the last 4-5 years has led to the departure of almost three hundred workers from Jabil's workforce, most of whom were rehired at Jabil's expense by other companies - Softlab and Orefice - as part of reindustrialization plans that, however, never took off. A dispute, that of Jabil, which has thus given rise to others; and just last week the former Jabil employees now at Softlab held yet another march through the streets of Caserta complaining about delays in salaries and, they too, very bleak future prospects, since they are on wage guarantee fund without being engaged in any productive activity, as they were at the time of Jabil. The 420 workers who remain in the multinational, also subject to rotating wage guarantee fund but who are nevertheless engaged in productive orders - currently, the Jabil plant in Marcianise manufactures charging stations for electric cars on behalf of Enel and microchips for Pirelli - are deeply concerned about the imminent expiration of the social cushion, and for this reason have been forcefully requesting a meeting at the Mimit for weeks. A way also to understand the real intentions of the company's top management, which after the layoffs of the past years had still expressed the intention to reach a workforce of 250 units, which would guarantee the survival of the production site, but which would however involve another 170 layoffs. The union delegate of Uilm Mauro Musella expresses satisfaction with the summons. "The workers' protests have borne fruit. Now we will go to the table to make our reasons heard." In a joint note from all the internal union delegates (Rsu), on behalf of all 420 Jabil workers, "another cry of alarm is launched towards institutions and politics for a dispute that remains nebulous and immobile for a long time. The wage guarantee fund agreement, now in its tenth month of the twelve planned, included a series of ministerial checks that have never been carried out. The workers and their families suffer a state of continuous uncertainty about their future, despite expressing first-level professionalism and skills in a strategic market segment for the relaunch of the entire country, in a moment of ecological and smart-technology transition. Through the latest factory assemblies, a synthesis of the will of the workers of Marcianise has emerged, who firmly believe they have a role in the American multinational, which can and must allocate more investments for a site that continues to be a reference in the group.