“We have tears in our eyes, a thousand human stories to tell, but that’s not the point today. We’re not poor workers going home. We are dignity, pride and resistance.” So insisted the hundreds of workers protesting at the historic auto parts factory in Campi Bisenzio, Italy, after learning by email this July that the plant owned by GKN Driveline Firenze was to close immediately — and that they were out of a job.

The move hits 422 employees, as well as at least eighty workers in contracted services at the factory such as cooks and cleaners. Some had spent a lifetime working there, manufacturing axle shafts for the main Italian and European car brands. But overnight, without warning, a “goodbye” came to their mailboxes. Despite the reasons the company gives, GKN workers are adamant: This is not a factory in crisis, and there are still orders and work.

Faced with what looked like an absurd decision, the workers decided to fight back: They occupied the factory, organized huge protests and marches, set up local and Italy-wide solidarity networks, and convened an assembly of supportive lawyers to help write a bill against redundancies and offshoring. And they won support and media visibility. There was an outpouring of statements by politicians both left and right, and Campi Bisenzio’s mayor even issued an order prohibiting trucks in the area, in order to prevent the British multinational that owns the plant from coming to collect its machinery.