Fiat 'plan' to revolutionise contracts sparks fury
Carmarker reportedly wants to dump national bargaining
27 July, 18:14
(ANSA) - Rome, July 27 - Reports that Fiat are planning to
revolutionise industrial relations in Italy by dumping a
national labour-contract bargaining system sparked outrage on
Tuesday.The carmaker has summoned trade unions to a meeting in Turin Thursday at which it is expected to announce it is leaving engineering sector association Federmeccanica to avoid having to offer workers contracts negotiated by the association nationally.
''What Fiat is (reportedly) announcing on contracts is the most serious attack on the rights of Italian workers since 1945,'' said Giorgio Cremaschi of the FIOM trade union.
Fiat also said Tuesday that it has set up a new company to manage its Pomigliano d'Arco plant near Naples.
The new company, Fabbrica Italia Pomigliano, will run the factory according to a flexible-working-practices deal outside the constraints of the national contract to boost productivity in exchange for Fiat's pledge to make Panda cars there.
If Fiat do break Italian tradition by pulling out of the national bargaining system, analysts say it will show management intend to keep playing hardball with employees and unions in its bid to dictate labour contracts, justifying this as necessary for survival in today's competitive market.
Last week Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne said a plan agreed in 2009 to increase production in Italy will be slowed and that a new vehicle that will replace its Multipla and Lancia Musa models will be made in Serbia and not, as had been expected, in its Turin home.
That came after FIOM, which is linked to the nation's biggest union CGIL, opposed the Pomigliano accord, claiming that, among other things, it was against the Italian constitution because it infringes on workers' right to strike.
In the end Fiat decided to press ahead with the programme after other unions agreed to it, despite being disappointed that only around 62% of Pomigliano workers supported it in a vote.
''Italy is being blackmailed by Marchionne,'' added Cremaschi.
''The fact that most politicians and trade unionists are willing to let themselves be blackmailed does not stop this being a catastrophe for the country's labour and industry''.
While other unions accepted Fiat's conditions for Pomigliano, they too are up in arms about the prospect of the national labour contract system being binned.
''We will not sign any different sort of contract with Fiat,'' said UGL Secretary General Giovanni Centrella.
''We have always defended the central role of national contracts and we will continue to do so, just as we consider unacceptable any ploy to overturn union relations''. If the move is confirmed, it will affect the contracts of around 25,000 employees in Italy, starting at the beginning of 2013 after the current nationwide deal has expired. Antonio Di Pietro, the leader of the opposition Italy of Values party, said Fiat's dumping of the national contract would be like a ''coup d'état''.
The government warned the group to move carefully too. ''Decisions should not be made unilaterally,'' said Labour Minister Maurizio Sacconi. The company is also scheduled to meet unions and government representatives on Wednesday for talks on its plans to boost production in Italy. Fiat came under heavy fire from unions and politicians last year when it announced plans to shut down its Termini Imerese plant in Sicily. The company's share price rose sharply last week when it announced better-than-expected profit figures for the second quarter and confirmed plans to spin off its auto businesses from other parts of the group.
