Fiat's Italian Renaissance Draws (More) Labor Strife

With some 60k Italian jobs and a $20b investment at stake, Fiat’s “Fabbrica Italia” renovation of its home-country production plans are crucial to the integration of Fiat and Chrysler. And rather than negotiating a national labor agreement with Italy’s fractious unions, Fiat has been revamping its Italian plants on a case-by-case basis. This strategy has already backfired at the firm’s Naples-based Pomigliano plant, where the Italian metalworker’s union Fiom decried Fiat’s plans as “discriminatory.” Since then, Fiat has moved onto its Mirafiori plant in Turin, where Fiat wants to build the next-generation Compass/Patriot models for Chrysler and a derivative SUV for Alfa-Romeo on the firm’s new “Compact Wide” platform. And once again, Fiom is up to its old tricks. The WSJ reports that every other union has approved the new Mirafiori deal with Fiat, except Fiom, which has been banned from representing workers at the plant, pending a January vote by workers. However, Fiom represents some 22 percent of Mirafiori workers, and the union has announced an eight-hour strike for January 28.

The deal, which involves adding shifts and increasing wages in return for limits on strikes and benefits, was denounced by Fiom boss Maurizio Landini as

It’s an unprecedented attack on democracy and on people’s rights. Fiat’s acts are anti-union, anti-democratic and authoritarian. It’s necessary to respond if we don’t want social barbarism

But, as the sole holdout among Italy’s unions, Fiom’s fiery rhetoric seems only to be increasing the union’s isolation. The leader of another, more moderate union, which has signed the Fiat deal sniffs

Fiom has been a political organisation for more than 10 years and it behaves as such even when it pretends to be a union

And sure enough, Italy’s PD (Social Democrat) party has weighed in on the issue in support of Fiom, as the party’s economics minister tells AGI

we’re talking about a fact that has a general relevance and touches the issue of the quality of democracy. We think that the solution found for Mirafiori and Pomigliano is unacceptable because it is impossible to deny representation to part of the workers, it is necessary to act on the representation rules

But how bad is the deal for workers? According to France24

The 40-hour working week remains unchanged, but the agreement will allow Fiat to impose night shifts, cut down time allotted for breaks and raise overtime. As well as improving production, the unions say the changes will permit a rise in salaries of up to 3,700 euros (4,800 dollars) gross a year.

Considering that Fiat loses money on all of its Italian plants and faces shifting production of Pomigliano’s Panda to Poland, it’s a bit surprising that Fiom is willing to play hardball in the face of zero union solidarity. Maybe a short strike will get it out of their system. If not, Fiat is going to have its hands full trying to maintain its identity as an Italian firm.