Fiat's senior management
has narrowly won a vote that will safeguard the future
of the historic Mirafiori factory in the carmaker's
hometown of Turin, with workers voting 54.1 percent in a
referendum in favour of applying sweeping new contracts
which will strip away many long-established rights but
which Fiat believes are necessary to introduce to make
the plant more competitive.
The news that the vote
had gone Fiat's way came from the Fim-Cisl union, one of
the five unions involved in the count. Only one of the
five unions,
Fiom-Cgil, that
represent workers at the plant was set against the new
contracts - which will spin Mirafiori onto a new entity
and remove it from the umbrella protection of nationally
recognised Italian labour laws - with the other four
unions coming to agreement with Fiat in late December.
The majority outcome of
the vote, which took place at the Mirafiori factory on
Thursday, was considerably less that the almost
two-thirds majority during last year's voting on the
future of the Pomigliano d'Arco plant near Naples,
although this time Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne had
realistically said beforehand that new would be happy
with a simple majority.
Workers came under huge
pressure to accept the new contract proposals - which
will increase annual working hours and shifts, provide
stiffer penalties for absenteeism and striking, and
alter the timetables for taking breaks - and a stream of
threats from Fiat's top management that production would
be transferred away from Italy if the vote went against
the company's wishes left workers feeling they had
little choice. The carrot dangled was the prospect of
building a raft of new models for both Fiat and the
Chrysler Group. The vote had caused a national debate in
Italy as it is seen by many as opening the way to a
fundamental change in the perceived rigidity of Italian
employment contracts and the protection that workers
enjoy.
