Ex-Ilva contractor workers strike in Taranto over court-ordered hot area shutdown
Subcontracted workers at the ex-Ilva steel plant launched a 24-hour strike and road blockades in Taranto after an appellate court ordered the facility's hot area closed by late October, putting 2,500 jobs at risk.
Strike action and road blockades
Contractor workers at the former Ilva steel plant in Taranto began a 24-hour strike at 09:00 on Monday, 14 September 2026. The walkout was declared by the Fim, Fiom, Uilm, and Usb trade unions following a general worker assembly held outside the factory's commercial gate. Scheduled to last until 07:00 on Tuesday, 15 September, the protest halted contractor activities across the manufacturing perimeter. Demonstrating workers occupied the provincial road leading to Statte and prepared a second blockade along the state highway toward Bari. Union officials warned that industrial disruption will expand across the region if authorities fail to introduce emergency protections.
Be clear that we will not stop if there are no solutions and extraordinary measures for all workers.
Court orders on the hot area
The labour mobilization responds directly to judicial rulings mandating operational closures at the Taranto steelworks. On 9 July 2026, the Milan Court of Appeal issued decree number 425/2026, ordering the complete suspension of the plant's hot area within 90 days, fixing the shutdown date for late October 2026. The court based the order on two primary grounds: the presence of over 2,000 tonnes of asbestos inside the Cowper stoves and severe fine particle pollution affecting Taranto and Statte. Plant administrators at Ilva and Acciaierie d'Italia appealed the ruling to obtain a suspension of the measure.
The appellate decree followed legal precedents established in European and domestic courts. On 25 June 2024, the European Court of Justice ruled in case C-626/22 that industrial operating permits must prioritize human health assessments. Italian judges subsequently applied this principle on 26 February 2026, when the Milan Court set aside parts of the 2025 Integrated Environmental Authorization due to deficient asbestos decontamination plans.
- EU Court of Justice rules that industrial permits cannot disregard human health impacts
- Milan Court partially disapproves 2025 environmental permit over asbestos remediation gaps
- Milan Court of Appeal decrees suspension of the hot area within 90 days
- Trade unions launch 24-hour strike and road blockades across Taranto transport routes
Layoff threats and government negotiations
The ordered shutdown of the hot area puts roughly 2,500 subcontracted workers at risk of collective dismissal. Union federations have called for immediate employment guarantees, income protection mechanisms, a freeze on subcontracting redundancy procedures, and an industrial transition roadmap. During the Monday morning assembly in Taranto, union delegates pointed out that authorities have spent 14 years without executing necessary environmental modernization projects.
The judges in Milan with that decision permanently established that the right to health prevails over everything. But there is a right that the Constitution provides, is enshrined, and cannot absolutely not be taken into consideration: the right to work.
A crisis meeting between the Italian government and trade union delegations is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, 15 September, at Palazzo Chigi in Rome. However, as of Sunday, 13 September, no formal invitations had been delivered to the labour syndicates or to the extraordinary commissioners of Ilva and Acciaierie d'Italia. Union leaders noted that time has run out, demanding immediate state intervention to prevent mass unemployment in the Taranto industrial district.
