The 2016 production data from FCA's final plants reach and exceed 1 million cars, also considering Sevel's commercial vehicles. This level of production has not been reached in our country since 2008. In 4 years, volumes have grown by 70%.
The data is particularly positive – underlines Ferdinando Uliano – because the effect on employment goes in the direction we hoped for with the completion of the 2014-2018 plan. With our trade union agreements, with the consequent investments and new models, the Italian factories are filling up with production destined for all markets. The effect on employment is very positive: a continuous reduction in the use of social safety nets and an ever closer prospect of full employment.
Plants like Mirafiori finally surpass the number of cars produced in 2012, with only 8 months of production of the new Maserati SUV. And this symbolically represents change. The decision to change the type of car produced in our country, raising its range, Uliano reiterates, has proved successful in terms of prospects, employment and profitability. The medium-high range cars produced in 2012 represented only 20% of the volumes, while in 2016 they came close to 60% of the volumes, practically doubled compared to 2012 (as shown in the attached graph).
mirafiori
The start of production of the new Maserati Levante SUV in the first quarter meant that the productions of 9 were surpassed in just 2012 months, with the first model of the "Polo del Lusso" built in the Mirafiori plant.
Finally, a new perspective can be seen for the Turin plant, which speaks of volumes and employment. In the first six months of production, the SUV had already reached almost 10.000 units produced, with the start of the second shift this year the number of vehicles exceeded 20.000 (20.853 Levante SUVs). An excellent result in terms of volumes was also achieved by the Alfa Romeo MiTo, surpassing the result of 2013.
These volumes have allowed us to introduce the Solidarity Contract, a more conservative instrument that guarantees greater employability. In the next meetings with the top management of Lingotto, we expect the launch of production of the second luxury model to be made official in 2018, in the space already set up on the production line of the new Levante. This will make it possible not only to achieve the goal of full employment for the Turin plant, but also to further grow it.
Casino
For FCA, 2016 represented the relaunch of the Alfa Romeo brand and the concrete production implementation of the 2014 business plan, with around 5 billion euro earmarked for the Italian plants by 2018.
With the start of production of the Alfa Romeo Giulia in Cassino in March, the development of the new Alfa Romeo models began, which will see a further six models produced in the Italian plants which will complement the Giulia and the Crossover Stelvio, which began production in these days. The first positive effects were seen on 2016 volumes. Between Giulia and Giulietta, production reached 71.695 units (+57% compared to 2015), exceeding the productions of 9 in just 2014 months.
From February 2017, the increase in production on the Alfa Romeo Giulia and Stelvio will lead to the end of the use of social safety nets in the Cassino plant after 5 years. The consequent employment growth of 1.800 workers envisaged by FCA by 2018, of which 1.200 in the first three months of 2017, with the start of the second shift, will see a similar process of stabilization of temporary staffing contracts such as that which took place in Melfi plant.
The agreement that we have just concluded with FCA will also allow for the temporary use, until the Solidarity Contract expires in September 2018, of around 500 workers in Pomigliano, greatly reducing the negative impact of the reduction in working hours.
Grugliasco and Modena
In the last few months of 2016 there was a recovery in the production of the Trident brand as a whole, thanks to the driving effect of the Levante SUV together with the new restyling which made it possible to recover from a not particularly brilliant start to 2016.
In particular, production in Grugliasco reached 23.370 units compared to the 26.400 produced in 2015. About 1.826 GTs and Gran Cabrios and about 2.090 Alfa 4Cs were produced at the Modena plant. For the Modena plant, FCA has shelved the initial hypothesis of stopping production on 31 December 2016, allocating some investments that will allow Maserati production to be maintained most likely until 2018. A restyling of the Maserati GT and Gran Cabrio productions will be carried out. To allow for the investments necessary for the production of the restyling of the two Maserati models, production will have to be stopped for the period January-March 2016.
In order to reduce the impact on employment while awaiting the new production mission, the secondments of approximately 41 Ferrari workers will continue until the end of 2016, with probable continuation also for 2017.
Like Fim Cisl, we believe the decision to invest to continue the production of the two Maserati Modena models until 2018 is positive, even if we know that it is not decisive. Our goal now is to identify a specific new Maserati model to be produced at the Modena site by 2018.
Melfi
The new productions of the Lucanian plant maintain the excellent production performances with 300.500 units, of which 64% made up of Jeep Renegades and 36% of Fiat 500X. It is a different story for the Fiat Punto which, with 64.000 cars produced, shows a decrease of around 26.000 units compared to the previous year, equal to – 28%. This led to the need to resort, after 3 years, to the use of shock absorbers of around 35 days of ordinary redundancy fund for the 1071 workers involved in production. Punto's prospect for 2017 is one of a continuous decline in production, it is essential - reiterates the national secretary of the FIM-CISL Ferdinando Uliano - that the management of FCA quickly identify the production solution to give a guarantee of future employment to over a thousand workers currently engaged on the Punto line. We see no other possibility than identifying a new model in the short term to complement the Renegade and 500X.
Pomigliano
The Campania plant achieved a further positive increase in Panda volumes. 207.000 Pandas were produced (+16,9% compared to 2016) with an increase of 33,7% compared to 2013. It is certainly a record figure that even exceeds the 190.000 units initially planned for 2016. This figure has made it possible to further expand the area with the greatest impact on employment, even if on Pomigliano - Ferdinando Uliano declares - it is essential to formalize the new models destined for the Campano plant capable of guaranteeing full employment for the current employees. In the discussion on the temporary mission of about 500 workers from Campania to Cassino, we obtained a meeting from the FCA management in the agreement by 31.3.17, in which to analyze the industrial prospects and therefore the models destined for Pomigliano. For us, this is the necessary date to avoid that in September 2018 there are no conditions to give work to all employees, the date on which all the available social safety nets will end.
Sevel
2016 is the third year of production growth and the year of the production record since the Abruzzo plant was born. 2016 ended with production exceeding 290.000 units (+11,2% compared to 2015). From 2013 in three years the growth was 42,2%. This increase already allowed 2015 workers to stabilize at the end of 280. There are currently around 270 temporary workers who entered the contract during 2016, and according to the forecast for 2017 – reiterates the FIM-CISL secretary – we will be engaged as a union to stabilize them indefinitely. The excellent results in terms of volume and on the WCM will also bring positive results on the increase in the efficiency bonus.
Ferrari
2016 is the year of Ferrari records. The spin-off from FCA and the consequent listing of the new company on the Stock Exchange further boosted the volumes of Ferrari which produced approximately 8.170 cars (+10,5%), exceeding the 7.000 mark which had characterized the volumes of the Prancing Horse for years. This will also have very positive effects on overall profitability. Ferrari's excellent results - underlines Uliano - have enabled another record that interests us particularly, the employment one: there are 3.450 permanent workers (+ 16% compared to 2015).
The production figure for 2016 confirms the overall trend and the growth in volumes and the exceeding of the 1 million car quota, definitively leads us – underlines Ferdinando Uliano – to archive the dark period of 2012-2013 in which over 40% of employment was idle and layoffs and car volumes were below 400.000 units. Today the situation is completely different and with the production increase in the Cassino and Mirafiori plants the workers involved in the CIG and CDS will go below 8%.
We are moving towards full employment, even if it becomes essential to seize it by 2018, to address the most critical areas currently present represented by Pomigliano and Melfi. In Pomigliano, where the decision on the new models is essential to be implemented within the next few months, to avoid a complicated situation of exhaustion of the shock absorbers which would occur by September 2018. In the Melfi plant, the drop in the Punto highlights the need for solutions that add production volumes to the excellent results of Renegade and 500x.
As FIM-CISL we will continue our union and contractual action in FCA which has allowed us to overcome the pre-bankruptcy situation of 2012, bringing the automotive production of our country to be the driving sector of our country's industry and economy. We have defeated the opposition and distrust of those trade union and political forces that are conditioned by exclusively ideological logics that aim for the worse the better. Concrete facts and numbers prove us right, and this is positive news above all for workers, for our country and for the future of the engineering industry.
