Introduction: the confiscation

In July 2012, a local preliminary hearing judge ordered the closure of the most polluting furnaces of the Ilva steel plant in Taranto, the largest and one of the oldest such factories in Europe, finding its management guilty of environmental and public health disaster. After decades of an imperturbable – if unequal – balance among social actors, the confiscation1 set in motion an unprecedented conflict between environmental and community activists on the one hand and the company owners, backed by government support, on the other. The conflict inevitably extended to the Metalworkers’ Union Confederation, sparking a profound and irreversible crisis. In this process, its initial manifestations of loyalty and support to the company – in continuation of decades-long attitudes of quiescence because of the threat of large-scale job losses – encountered the unexpected opposition of substantial parts of the rank and file (and the local population at large), causing the union to lose much of its credibility and a significant number of affiliates. Such an explosive situation – which attracted the attention of the New York Times, The Guardian and The Economist – opened up entirely new social dynamics and an ongoing process of cultural and political reframing at the community level.

How can we make sense of this epoch-changing event in the history of the city? To answer that question, some background data need to be taken into account. The Ilva facility is startling in terms of its physical size, economic relevance and record of pollution. With a surface of 1500 hectares (scattered over 200 km of railway, 5 blast furnaces, 10 coke oven batteries and 6 exclusively dedicated docks), Ilva accounts for more than 30% of Italy's steel production and for approximately 75% of Taranto's GDP. Furthermore, it employed 11,980 workers in 2012 (including blue collar, white collar and managerial staff), which rises to over 20,000 if associated services are considered (Comito and Colombo, 2013). And its gigantic scale is perfectly mirrored by the dramatic data concerning polluting emissions: in 2010, Ilva emitted over 11,000 t of nitrogen dioxide, 11,300 t of sulphur dioxide and 1.3 t of benzene, all well beyond the thresholds established by national as well as EU legislation (Vulpio, 2012).