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Fiat said Wednesday that
its plans to boost production in Italy have not been
ditched after causing a stir last week by saying it
would make a new model in Serbia, reports ANSA.
However, the company also told trade union leaders and
government representatives that Fabbrica Italia, the
plan agreed last year to increase activity in its
homeland, could only go ahead if workers accepted change
is needed to survive in today's competitive markets.
''We are the only company to invest 20 billion (euros)
in the country,'' Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne was quoted
as saying by sources at the meeting. ''But we must have
guarantees that the plants can function. 'If the project
is just a pretext to leave things as they are, it's
right that everyone assumes responsibility for their
actions in the knowledge that Fabbrica Italia cannot go
ahead and the plans and investments will have to be
downsized. At this point we want a yes or a no. Yes
means modernising the Italian industrial system. ''No
means leaving things as they are, accepting that the
industrial system will continue to be inefficient and
inadequate for making profits and, therefore, for
keeping or increasing jobs''.
Last week Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne said the Fabbrica
Italia will be slowed following tensions with the FIOM
union over proposals to introduce flexible working
procedures to increase production at a plant near Naples
in exchange for making Panda cars there.
FIOM, which is linked to the nation's biggest union CGIL,
opposed the accord for the Pomigliano d'Arco plant, but
it is going ahead anyway after other unions backed it,
as did 62% of workers there in a vote. Indeed, Fiat said
Tuesday that it has set up a new company to give it a
freer hand in managing the Pomigliano plant. Marchionne
reassured the unions that the decision to make the L0,
the new vehicle that will replace its Multipla and
Lancia Musa models, in Serbia rather than at the
Mirafiori plant in the carmaker's Turin home did not
spell disaster for the latter.
''The move does not remove prospects for Mirafiori,'' he
said. ''There are alternatives to guarantee its volume
of production''. Marchionne met Labour Minister Maurizio
Sacconi and Piedmont Governor Roberto Cota, government
sources said, before the round table with union
representatives.
Report courtesy of
ANSA
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