Sustainability Analysis
Fiat to close Sicilian plant
By Giulia Segreti in Rome
Fiat’s Termini Imerese plant in Sicily is to close on Thursday after 41 years of production as the Italian carmaker presses ahead with sweeping restructuring plans, including the imposition of new labour contracts that have prompted threats of strike action.
The closure is only the second of a car plant in Europe since the start of the financial crisis, which hurt car sales and exposed the industry’s chronic overcapacity problems. General Motors shut its Opel/Vauxhall factory in Antwerp last year.
Fiat met Italian government and union officials in Rome on Wednesday to discuss redundancy benefits and possible transfers for some 1,600 workers at Termini Imerese and an estimated 700 employed in connected industries.
The site will be taken over, for the symbolic sum of €1, in January by DR Motors, a small Italian manufacturer that assembles cars from Chinese components. According to a government agency, it has pledged to employ some 1,300 workers over the next four years and to invest about €100m ($134m), plus €30m in government grants.
Fiat is facing resistance to its restructuring from Fiom, the largest and most leftwing car workers union, which threatened strike action on Tuesday after Sergio Marchionne, chief executive, confirmed his intention to tear up nationally agreed labour contracts from 2012 and impose locally negotiated contracts at the six remaining plants in Italy.
The contracts, representing a sea change in Italian industrial relations, have been accepted by other moderate trade unions and involve more shifts, shorter breaks, enforced overtime and restrictions on the right to strike, compensated by modest wage increases.
Mr Marchionne set the stage for his revolution last month by taking Fiat out of Confindustria, the national employers association that negotiated past contracts at a national level with the unions.
Mr Marchionne said Fiat would “align the Italian production system to the
By Giulia Segreti in Rome
Fiat’s Termini Imerese plant in Sicily is to close on Thursday after 41 years of production as the Italian carmaker presses ahead with sweeping restructuring plans, including the imposition of new labour contracts that have prompted threats of strike action.
The closure is only the second of a car plant in Europe since the start of the financial crisis, which hurt car sales and exposed the industry’s chronic overcapacity problems. General Motors shut its Opel/Vauxhall factory in Antwerp last year.
Fiat met Italian government and union officials in Rome on Wednesday to discuss redundancy benefits and possible transfers for some 1,600 workers at Termini Imerese and an estimated 700 employed in connected industries.
The site will be taken over, for the symbolic sum of €1, in January by DR Motors, a small Italian manufacturer that assembles cars from Chinese components. According to a government agency, it has pledged to employ some 1,300 workers over the next four years and to invest about €100m ($134m), plus €30m in government grants.
Fiat is facing resistance to its restructuring from Fiom, the largest and most leftwing car workers union, which threatened strike action on Tuesday after Sergio Marchionne, chief executive, confirmed his intention to tear up nationally agreed labour contracts from 2012 and impose locally negotiated contracts at the six remaining plants in Italy.
The contracts, representing a sea change in Italian industrial relations, have been accepted by other moderate trade unions and involve more shifts, shorter breaks, enforced overtime and restrictions on the right to strike, compensated by modest wage increases.
Mr Marchionne set the stage for his revolution last month by taking Fiat out of Confindustria, the national employers association that negotiated past contracts at a national level with the unions.
Mr Marchionne said Fiat would “align the Italian production system to the