The meeting between the company and the unions for the six-monthly verification of the Electrolux agreement signed in May 2014 was held yesterday at the Ministry of Economic Development, with the presence at the start of the meeting of Deputy Minister Bellanova and representatives of local institutions. From the point of view of the market, a growth of 2016% of the European one is forecast for 2; partly for this reason, the company has revised its investments upwards, which for this year will amount to 44,5 million euros, against a commitment assumed in the agreement of 27,8 million. Production volumes in 2016 should be almost in line with what was defined in the agreement, with 4.010.000 pieces compared to the 4.095.000 originally envisaged.
However, according to the unions, there is still a very different situation per plant: while the estimate for the Forlì and Porcia sites is slightly higher than the commitments made with the agreement - 1.550.000 and 1.050.000 pieces compared to 1.470.000. 950.000 and 810.000 -, lower are the estimates for Susegana, 835.000 compared to 600.000 pieces, and above all for Solaro, 840.000 pieces instead of XNUMX.
Also in the light of this, Fim, Fiom and Uilm reiterated their request to bring the design back to Solaro, as one of the actions useful for increasing volumes in that plant, attempting a rebalancing with the Polish Zarov plant, where production is still growing. Regarding the commitment to reabsorb 150 redundancies at the Porcia site, the company confirmed the expansion of the warehouse activity, which should reabsorb around 50 employees from 2017, and announced that four reindustrialization proposals are being analysed, in any case still far from the conclusion.
In this regard, the trade union organizations have requested that Electrolux, in the absence of reliable third-party investors, carry out workforce reabsorption interventions themselves, as foreseen in the industrial plan, since in Porcia there are still as many as 350 redundancies, compared to a total of 550 left in the group. Finally, on the issue of tax relief, the Government has undertaken to seek solutions for the two-year period 2016-2017, specifying that its extension still requires regulatory intervention.
