Scenari futuri del lavoro e nuovi orizzonti di lotta alle acciaierie di Terni

This paper is based on ethnographic research amongst the steelworkers of Acciai Speciali Terni [AST], owned by ThyssenKrupp, that took place during a long union dispute in 2014/2015. Industrial production decline has transformed substantially the western working-class over the last decades, however forms of belonging that promote collective action and political activism persist and are based on a common understanding of past and future. In the case of Terni’s steelworkers, this understanding is based on a collective memory framed within the local worker’s conflictual and subversive tradition. The past is merged with a contemporary experience of the company’s commodification process that the workers actively fight. Through a historical review and an analysis of the ethnographic data the article aims at showing how, on one hand, consolidated forms of protest persist influence questions of identity and class belonging, and on the other provide tools and fruitful ground to compare past and present industrial landscapes. The workers and trade unions’ response to a phase of profound economic uncertainty, due to the company’s instability and the pandemic will help to understand the role of the workers struggle and the strike as terrain of comparison with traditional and consolidates forms of labour protest and to delineate future scenarios of work and unrest.