ITALIAN AUTOMOBILE giant Fiat appeared to register a significant victory last weekend when 54 per cent of workers at the company’s flagship Mirafiori plant, in Fiat’s home town of Turin, voted in favour of a new, more flexible contract in return for the promise of a €20 billion investment over the next four years.
Critics argue that the Fiat chief executive officer Sergio Marchionne had left his workers facing a de facto ultimatum when he indicated that if a majority of workers did not vote in favour of the new contract, then the company would shift production abroad, perhaps to the US or Canada.
Inevitably, the Mirafiori factory referendum prompted bitter divisions, with many arguing that hard-earned workers’ rights should not be sacrificed on the altar of global competitiveness.
In the end, the size of the No vote, (46 per cent), suggests that Fiat will have to reopen negotiations with the militant, left-wing FIOM trade union, which had refused to sign the new contract and which has also called for a factory strike on January 28.
An analysis of the vote shows that, without the votes of the factory’s white-collar workers (secretarial staff, etc), the margin of the Yes victory on the shop floor was merely nine votes (2,315 to 2,306).
Susanna Camusso, head of the leftist confederated union, CGIL, called on Mr Marchionne to reconsider his strategy in the light of the vote, saying: “Now it’s not just a trade union blocking his plans, now it is the workers themselves who have said to him that things simply cannot continue in this way”.
Not surprisingly, however, Fiat welcomed the vote, saying that it gave the green light for a €20 billion investment plan.
