“Italy is a Republic founded on labour,” states the Italian Constitution at first article.

But what happens when labour loses its value? Globalisation, together with technologies that centralise wealth, like artificial intelligence, is creating mass unemployment, leaving many out of the job market.

How can we stop financial capital from taking the lead? How can we protect the dignity of thousands of workers? In short: how can we imagine and build a different kind of economy?

No one has a clear answer. Yet some projects don’t just inspire the imagination—they lay the groundwork for a new vision of economic and environmental justice, based on solidarity and democratic participation.

GKN Factory Collective

One such project is the GKN Factory Collective, a group of workers that emerged from a labour struggle in Campi Bisenzio, near Florence. In July 2021, the British investment fund Melrose suddenly announced the closure of the GKN plant, specialised in the production of drive shafts for the automotive industry, firing over 400 workers via email, overnight. As a response, the workers occupied the factory, putting their bodies on the line to resist the closure and defend their jobs and their dignity.

In a short time, what began as a local labour dispute turned into a national symbol of resistance against deindustrialisation and precarity. The GKN workers resisted legal action, months without pay, and corporate attacks, not by closing in on themselves, but by opening their struggle to everyone. Because no one can be saved alone. 

This struggle sends us a powerful message: if we want to build a future that’s truly an alternative to today’s bleak present, marked by individualism, insecurity, competition among the poor, and enrichment for the few, we must build it collectively, here and now.

Interconnections between struggles and movements

That’s why this local workers’ struggle joined forces with movements for Palestinian liberation, environmental justice, feminist and queer rights, other labour struggles, and transnational activism. Above all, it has created networks and a community, a space for resistance, for organising, for gathering, discussing, laughing, eating, singing. To put it simply, a place for living, together.

And now? Now it’s time to roll up our sleeves and build a new way of doing politics and production. The collective aims to reconvert the factory into a public, self-managed hub dedicated to sustainable mobility and renewable energy.
To achieve this, they’ve launched a popular shareholding campaign, open to citizens, movements, trade unions and organisations, to take part in the reindustrialisation effort.

MERA25 and DiEM25 in Italy want to do their part. We are raising funds to join the GKN popular shareholding campaign.
We won’t just contribute financially, we’ll contribute time, skills, and energy to support a project that is concrete and realistic, yet dares to reach for the stars. Over the next month, we will be collecting funds for this purpose.

If you’re not yet a DiEM25 member, join us. If you already are, consider donating: your contribution will support MERA25’s entry into the GKN cooperative.

Donate now to support this ambitious campaign

We’re not asking for charity or a gift, we’re asking you to invest your money.
But instead of investing in government bonds, pension funds, cryptocurrencies or high-yield stocks, invest in this occupied factory on the outskirts of Florence. Because what’s happening here isn’t just the creation of a cooperative, this is history in the making.

And we want to be on the right side of it.

The funds raised will be used to purchase a minimum of 5 shares in the GFF COOP.P.A. cooperative on behalf of the MERA25 Association (Italy).

Ph: GKN workers/A.Sawyer

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