Fiat on Wednesday kept its options open on the future of a car plant in southern Italy after a third of the workforce voted against conditions tied to a critical investment plan.
In a statement, Fiat did not reveal whether it would shut down or invest heavily in the Pomigliano d’Arco plant in the impoverished region around the southern town of Naples after the vote on Tuesday.
Fiat said it was “impossible” to reach an agreement with all unions, adding that it would “work with the unions that have taken the responsibility for the agreement… to carry out future projects.”
Under the plan, Fiat would move production of its best selling Panda model from Poland — where labour costs are low — to Pomigliano on condition that workers accept longer hours and shorter breaks.
The company, which acquired a 20-percent stake in Chrysler last year with the aim of taking it over, is prepared to invest 700 million euros (850 million dollars) to rejuvenate Pomigliano.
“No one else would bring back production from abroad” to Italy, Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne said earlier this month.
Pundits and politicians have lauded Fiat’s intention to de-localize production to — and not from — Italy, but critics say the conditions workers would have to agree to are too harsh.
On Tuesday, 62.2 percent of the workers voted for and 36.7 percent against the proposed conditions.
“This is the worst result for Fiat,” Gianluca Spina, head of the business school at Milan’s polytechnic, told AFP.
“The weak support for the plan does not give it enough guarantees to move the production to Pomigliano. The risk of tensions — with strikes and absenteeism — remains too high and that would put in danger the plant’s competitiveness.”
Fiat wants to arrange shifts to enable the plant to operate 24 hours a day, six days a week in order for it to build 270,000 cars a year compared with just 35,000 vehicles in 2009 — a year marked by several periods of temporary layoffs owing to the global economic downturn.
Marchionne has said the plant could be shut down as soon as next year should the plan fall through.
The Panda, an inexpensive hatchback is currently produced in the southern Polish plant of Tychy, near the border with the Czech Republic.
On June 15, the plan was approved by all of the unions except FIOM-CGIL, which maintains that the scheme infringes on workers’ rights, giving Fiat the power to sanction and eventually fire workers over “abnormal” absences from the workplace.
FIOM maintains the rule compromises workers’ right to strike.
Marchionne, who is also the head of Chrysler, has often complained about having to deal with more than one Italian union.
“We need to talk with one interlocutor — like in the US — not twelve,” he said last week.
Fiat is Italy’s biggest private employer with a national workforce of some 80,000 people
