“I've always had a great feeling with Sergio Marchionne. When FCA split with Confindustria, I was vice president but I couldn't do much: however, I can say that already at the time, and still today, I was in agreement with the positions of the managing director". Alberto Bombassei, founder of Brembo, reveals the background during a meeting at the Rizzoli bookshop, in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, to discuss the book "Marchionne the foreigner", written by the signature of the Sole 24 Ore Paolo Bricco after years of investigations, between Turin and Detroit, on the Marchionne man and entrepreneur. The book, published by Rizzoli, was released a few days after the death of the Italian-Canadian manager, last July, and is still among the best sellers. “Marchionne was right – admitted Bombassei, referring to the 2011 break that led to FCA's exit from Confindustria apart from 1 January 2012 -, it was a mistake to force article 8 of the government maneuver, wanted by the then minister Maurizio Sacconi, who provided that the company agreements had to be stipulated in compliance with the provisions contained in the inter-confederal agreements and that they could only be stipulated by companies and trade unions that belonged to that inter-confederal system".
“Among other things – added Bombassei recalling an anecdote – an episode comes to mind that I remember with pleasure. At the time I was vice president and I was soon to be a candidate for the presidency of Confindustria: Marchionne told me that if I made it, Fiat would be part of the association again. Unfortunately, however, I was not elected”. The author of the book, Paolo Bricco, then intervened on the difficult relationship with Confindustria and above all with the trade unions, explaining that "in reality in the first phase of the Marchionne era, between 2004 and 2009, relations with the trade unions were not good but even excellent. Marchionne even before being a great manager was a factory man, he had humble origins and his sister, who died prematurely due to an illness, was what we would today call a left-wing intellectual. All this, the past of Marchionne as a man, has greatly influenced his attitude towards workers and trade unions ”.
But then, in 2009, things changed a bit. “There was the Chrysler operation and above all, I would say, the failed acquisition of Opel. This contributed to the Americanization of Fiat and it became impossible for Marchionne to maintain the same type of relationship with trade associations”, added Bricco. But the first phase helped to relaunch, reaching agreements with the trade unions, some historic factories such as that of Pomigliano d'Arco: “The relaunch of Pomigliano – recalled Bombassei – was emblematic. It was an ultra-unionised, degraded factory, with no respect for safety, where even dogs were allowed in freely". "Marchionne came out as a man of the factory: Marchionne was not a populist but he was a man of the people", added Bricco, also revealing an anecdote: "The manager could not understand the fact that the deputy premier Luigi Di Maio, who is of Pomigliano, did not travel in a Fiat car but preferred a French car”.
With Di Maio and with the new government, Marchionne did not have time to build a relationship, while he had collaborated very intensely with US President Donald Trump: “With Trump – revealed Bricco – there was an excellent relationship. Both had a great focus on manufacturing and in a certain sense they were united by the fact that they opposed some classic elites, such as those of the clubs of Boston and Wall Street”. To find out even more, there is the book: 320 pages that tell the story of a man "who didn't let things happen, but who made them happen". A controversial manager, who divided but who in the course of his management managed to multiply the capitalization of FCA tenfold: from 6 billion in 2004 to 60 billion now.
