Worker protest

GSK Italy workers protest site closure

pharmafile | March 10, 2010 | News story | Research and Development GlaxoSmithKline, Italy, job cuts 

Workers at a GlaxoSmithKline R&D facility in Verona, Italy, have taken to the streets to protest a decision to close the site.

The Verona site also acts as a business centre and employs 700 staff. Around 550 people – mainly in R&D functions, are set to lose their jobs when it closes down.

The Italian unit was the centre of GSK’s Centre for Excellence in Drug Discovery (CEDD) for neurosciences, conducting early-stage research into diseases such as anxiety, depression and pain, which are no longer considered research priorities by the healthcare giant because of the difficulty in achieving a return on R&D investment.

The Italian demonstrations are being orchestrated by three trade unions (FILCEM-CGIL, FEMCA-CISL and UILCEM–UIL), all of which are affiliates of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) which represents around 2.6 million pharmaceutical workers around the world.

According to ICEM, a joint trade union delegation met four government ministers from the Ministries of Economic Development, Welfare and Health and “argued that the plant is profitable and also contributes to the profitability and growth of the company worldwide”.

The Ministers were in agreement with the trade union arguments, according to the union, and rejected the explanation of the company that the closure is part of the overall restructuring of the company.

The Italian Government says it will establish an arbitration committee next month to analyse in detail the reasons for GSK’s decision to close the Verona R&D facility.

There were rumours last month that GSK may consider spinning off some of the work carried out there into a separate company, but as yet no official statement from the company on that possibility has been made.

Meanwhile, GSK has assured the Italian authorities that its cutback plans for Verona will not affect other operations there, in particular the manufacturing of antibiotics.

The company issued a statement to that effect recently to respond to speculation in the Italian press that it was planning to shift production to China.

Verona is just one of a number of R&D sites around the world that stand to be affected by GSK’s R&D revamp. Others include Harlow and Tonbridge in the UK, facilities in Croatia and Poland and a unit located at Mississauga in Canada.

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