"We should develop a strategy aimed at avoiding job cuts and at convincing Alcoa to stay at Portovesme," Fabio Enne, general secretary of the Cisl trade union for Sardinia's region of Sulcis Iglesiente, said after a meeting between Alcoa management, unions' representatives and industrialists' association Confindustria.

Enne said the decision to work with the local authorities of Sardinia and the national government to persuade Alcoa to change its plans was shared by other major unions, Gigl and Uil, present at the meeting.

(Reporting by Svetlana Kovalyova; Editing by Anthony Barker)