Following meetings this week in Frankfurt with their counterparts from Opel, workers from Fiat's Italian unions will travel to Turin today to demand answers as fears grow over the job losses that could result from the merger between the two carmakers.

Workers represented by the Fim, Fiom, Uilm and  Fismic unions will converge on Turin this morning to seek reassurances about their job security. They will march under the banner "Da Nord a Sud la Fiat cresce solo con noi", and as well as a special charter train arriving from the threatened Pomigliano d'Arco factory near Naples, more than 50 coaches will be chartered to bring workers from right across Italy to Turin. As well as the Fiat Group Automobiles' workers, the Group's CNH, Iveco and Comau divisions will also be represented.

On Wednesday the Fiat and Opel unions met to discuss the proposed merger, with both sides currently opposing Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne's plant to create a giant new carmaking force that would combine Fiat's automobile manufacturing division with GM Europe's Opel/Vauxhall units along with Fiat's new 20 percent stake in Chrysler. GM's niche Saab brand could also be included in this grouping that would instantly become second in size in Europe, closely behind the VW/Audi Group. The ambitious proposals being driven by Marchionne are part of a desire to create a carmaker that can produce around six million units a year, a figure he believes is vital to be create the economies of scale to be profitable in the future.

Marchionne told German government officials last week that Opel's manufacturing network would emerge relatively unscathed from a merger, leading to fears that the expected plant closures would come in the rest of Europe. A leaked internal Fiat report called "Project Phoenix" foresees production facilities being shut in Belgium, the UK and Austria as well as two in Italy and an Opel engine facility in Germany as the merged entity would strive cut back around 18,000 of the 108,000 strong workforce that would be created by the new company.

On the Italian hit list are believed to be Pomigliano d'Arco near Naples, which would be downsized. The key Alfa Romeo factory builds the Alfa 147, 159, 159 Sportswagon and GT Coupé and has already been threatened with closure in recent months. A niche production facility in the north that builds the Alfa Brera and Spider would go too, while the Termini Imerese plant on Sicily is also threatened, although the "Project Phoenix" report says that its production would be "reassigned" within the group if the current car assembly there is terminated as expected.

Termini Imerese, which employs around 1,400 staff, is no stranger to fighting for its survival having successfully fought off several attempts to close it already this decade. With cars costing an average of 1,000 euros a unit due to its location, the business case for the plant has always swung by a slender thread. During the past eight months workers at Termini have had to benefit from the government supported redundancy fund for five months due to the slowdown in vehicle demand. After the latest lay-off the gates of the plant, where the Lancia Ypsilon is assembled, reopened last week, two weeks ahead of schedule. The B-segment hatchback model has been selling well since the start of this year, thanks in part to demand for its new "green" versions, allowing the plant to reopen again until the summer. Earlier last week workers took strike action, and on Thursday they walked out again, temporarily blocking a road.

After their meeting with Opel union leaders at the offices of the powerful IG Mettall union Frankfurt on Wednesday, Fiat's union leaders continued to state their opposition to the sweeping job losses that could result from the merger. "No plant must close," Enzo Masini of Italy's FIOM-CGIL union told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday after the get-together.

'Fiat's unions have been upset by the refusal of Marchionne and senior management to meet them thus far to discuss the future. Fiat sees the need for a completion of the Opel deal as well as the alliance with Chrysler before it opens talks, however the unions believe the matter is far more urgent. Workers at Fiat's other factories are also meeting to consider forms of action, including the option of an overtime ban or a work-to-rule. "'These forms of labour action are a legitimate form of persuasion to open a three-way talks between us, Fiat management and the government in Rome,'' explained Gianni Rinaldi, secretary general of the FIOM union told ANSA.

''If in the coming days we're not invited to meet with the government and Fiat, we will have to resort to labor initiatives to force a meeting, like refusing overtime. At the moment calling a strike is not under consideration" Eros Panicali, a UILM union chief, told ANSA, while according to Giorgio Airaudo, the secretary general of FIOM's Turin chapter, ''Fiat's workers in Italy want to work, but you can't expect them to do everything asked unless they are given some assurances about their future. 'It is also wrong to try and pit workers at one factory against those of another, just as it is wrong to try and divide workers in the same plant by linking threats of layoffs to readiness to do overtime," he added.