Pope Francis has met with a group of employees from Beko Europe at the Vatican, expressing his sympathy after the company announced nearly 2,000 redundancies across three of its soon-to-be-closed European plants.
A small group of Beko Europe staff from the company’s Siena, Fabriano and Comunanza facilities met with the head of the Catholic Church last weekend, and were reportedly accompanied by Cardinal Augusto Paolo Lojudice and Bishop Giampiero Palmieri.
The company announced last month that the three appliance sites would close before the end of 2025, which has led to outcry from the workers who will be affected by the decision.
During his Sunday Angelus, addressing onlookers at Saint Peter’s Square, Pope Francis said: “I am close to the workers of Siena, Fabriano and Ascoli Piceno, who defend in solidarity the right to work, which is a right to dignity. May their jobs not be taken away, for economic or financial reasons.”
Beko Europe has proposed closing the three sites as part of its new long-term business transformation plan. Following a comprehensive review of its European business, the company says that industry challenges – such as the rise in appliance sales from Asia and weakening demand – have led to much of its production base underperforming financially.
As a result, it believes current “capacity utilisation” rates in the Italian plants are unsustainable, and it is therefore looking to reconsider its operations in the country.
Beko Europe says it plans to invest €110m into some of the country’s other production sites, which will see Italy become “Beko’s centre of excellence for global industrial design as well as global cooking, including research and development”.
However, the Italian undersecretary of enterprises, Fausta Bergamotto, has publicly opposed the business’ proposed strategy, arguing that the plans could be devastating for workers. “We will not accept conclusions that are not shared with the trade unions,” Bergamotto has insisted. “We will take every possible action to ensure that the owners change strategy and, if necessary, we will also turn to the reference shareholder of Beko Europe to ask for respect for the interests of our country.”
Following a meeting at the end of November, Beko Europe resolved to maintaining production at the three affected Italian sites, “until the end of 2025, absorbing significant losses, so a future pathway can be best found”. However, there are currently no plans to continue operation at the sites after that time.
As part of its restructuring plans, Beko Europe also recently outlined proposals to close its factory in Łódź, Poland, as well as close the refrigeration production side of its plant in the city of Wrocław.
In the UK, the company also confirmed it will close its Hotpoint manufacturing facility in Bristol before the end of 2024.
Beko Europe was formed earlier this year, following a milestone merger between the appliance giants Arçelik and Whirlpool Corporation. At the time of the merger, the company said it had roughly 20,000 employees spread across 11 European production sites.
