Ex Whirlpool Naples, new plant within 18 months

"We feel the strong support of the country system for this courageous initiative of ours. As a Campania company, we have decided to give back to the territory a little of what we have had in our growth path".

This was stated by Felice Granisso, CEO of Tea Tek, the company that took over the former Whirlpool plant in Naples where household appliances were built. A long dispute that began four years ago when the multinational decided to withdraw from Naples.

And since then the workers have not given up, always guarding the structure and urging a production restart. In the factory on via Argine in a couple of years at most, they will no longer produce washing machines but photovoltaic panels.

Today they were there too, with their children in tow, in front of the factory gates to welcome the Minister of Enterprise, Adolfo Urso. And they were visibly excited because within a year and a half they will be able to return to that site which in the meantime will have to be renovated and adapted.

In short, a victory at the end of a long battle for the defense of work. The workers wanted to greet, upon his arrival, with a long applause the prefect of Naples, Claudio Palomba, who followed step by step the evolution of the crisis and the paths that led to the solution.

"Parliament has kept its promises ," Granisso continued, " to support workers until they are hired and will give us time to complete the investments, which will last 18-24 months. Once the investment is complete, we will give the city of Naples a beautiful, green factory, which will be Naples' first Industry 5.0 factory."

The next steps will be the remediation of the plant, its subsequent demolition, and then its reconstruction. In the meantime, workers will be trained to be employed on the new production, thanks to support from the Campania Region. However, "since the renewable energy market is booming ," Granisso concluded, " and we cannot afford to lose market share, we will gradually—starting in the next seven or eight months—recruit some workers at the Acerra plant, thereby also reducing the cost of social safety nets."