Twenty of them rekindled the Fosdondo Furnace, which closes with 4 million in revenues President Sassi: “The Italian market is having a hard time restarting, but foreign countries are helping us.”
CORREGGIO. As you enter the Fornace di Fosdondo , on the large wall on which the company logo stands on the left, you immediately see a large gap on the right. In fact, the equally large inscription of the now former Unieco group leader has disappeared. An imbalance that is noticeable to the naked eye, created by the strokes of white paint with which decades of fellowship have been erased. “It’s a blow to the heart, little to be done, but it’s the reality now,” say the workers who have restarted the Correggio Furnace thanks to the use of mobility money and the financial and organizational help — again at this juncture — of the cooperation (Legacoop, Cfi and Coopfond).
Next to them is the giant kiln dozens of meters long, from which various patterns of bricks are fired, with which half of Reggio Emilia and a significant part of Italy’s exposed facades have been erected. It is said that in the heyday one-third of Italian bricks were produced here. “During our peak expansion we grew to 67 employees with a turnover of about 14 million euros.” Speaking is Ettore Sassi, a furnace technician who is now president of the new co-op, as he walks through the wards and stops to dre an eye on an old banner with the Unieco inscription that did not end up like the sign at the entrance.
“Today with the crisis we have been gradually shrinking, dragged down also by the crisis of the parent company Unieco,” he says, “In 2016 we decided to try to carry on this business. We founded the cooperative and took over the branch of Unieco, putting ourselves back in the game.” Here, too, the restart reveals small numbers: just 20 workers “but with turnover between 3 and 4 million euros,” Sassi declares with a hint of pride but without concealing the difficulties of restarting with a factory whose fate is tied to the fate of the construction industry. “These are sustainable numbers to carry on this tradition. Those who are still here have a strong attachment to the company. I can say that we have always felt like entrepreneurs in the furnace, but whereas before we lived with a parent company that acted as a bit of a buffer against company choices, today everything is in our hands. Life is less peaceful but it has been worth it. It’s a bit like going back to 35 years ago, to a smaller size of cooperatives, like the ones we used to have. Then each of us expanded our role. We participate in the management meetings of the company whereas before it was all more distant. And it could not have been otherwise, since the cooperative was a body of 800 people. Decisions were more distant. Now there is a lot of pride.”
A year and a half after restarting with their own forces, the Forge still occupies the large factory where workers roam around, walking on the dust that covers everything: it is the pink clay from the quarry that is used to knead the bricks. “The market is not helping us because there is stagnation in Italy for our product,” says Sassi, “The untimely liquidation of Unieco came in early 2017 and put us in a difficult position because many
we were still associated with them. Some competitors and some intimidated customers have stopped orders. But then we recovered our independence. This year we hope to be close to a breakthrough, with a balanced budget.”
Enrico Lorenzo Tidona
