On Thursday, it was reported that Italy's government and trade unions and managers of Alcoa Inc. (AA.N) met briefly to discuss the fate of two Alcoa plants in Italy and promised to convene again on Feb. 22.

The press release is quoted as saying:

Alcoa said last week it was willing to continue to discuss ways to resolve energy costs at its aluminum smelters in Italy and pulled back from an earlier announcement that it would idle its two plants there on Feb. 6. Italian unemployment rose to 8.5 percent in December, its highest since monthly records began in January 2004, and Italy has one of the industrialized world's lowest workforce participation rates at only 22 million people from the 60 million population. Alcoa's Italian operations employ about 2,000 people.

Click here to access the entire press release ^[1]

Click here to access Alcoa Corporate Site ^[2]