Is Fiat still an Italian company or is it a multinational without a reference country for which it moves according to its industrial conveniences without wanting to respect the rules of its reference country? Is this the true meaning of the company's exit from Confindustria which also runs the risk of weakening the intermediate subjects indispensable for safeguarding that social cohesion invoked by all in a moment of serious crisis such as the current one?
These are the two fundamental questions to which the commentators of the main newspapers and many politicians of all tendencies have tried to give an answer after Marchionne's decision to detach from Confindustria. For Corriere della Sera, weakening the representation of companies at a time like this is a serious mistake, while for the Republic this decision demonstrates that Fiat is increasingly willing to leave Italy.
The problems posed by Fiat's decision are many and intertwined. To avoid creating controversy, it must be said that it seems illogical to continue thinking that Fiat wants to leave Italy when it announces two important investments in Mirafiori and Pratola Serra after those in Pomigliano and Grugliasco. And then it is above all contradictory to think that someone who wants to leave Italy has engaged in a difficult battle to update industrial relations and above all to offer an alternative to the decline of industry and of the entire country. An alternative that passes through the exchange between greater competitiveness and more job security and, in perspective, higher wages.
The truth is that all of this The Fiat affair highlights how difficult it is to carry out reforms in Italy: in words everyone invokes them but then when it comes to changing something from old habits everyone rises up and invites you to take care of your neighbor first. “The country appears immobile – says the director general of Censis Giuseppe Roma – and one gets the feeling that for the moment no one has identified the key to the problem. We're in trouble, but we don't know how to get out of it. Perhaps there is not even the exact perception of the difficulties we face. The impression is that we can still go on. But for how long?”
When someone tries to change things, he is invited by friends to be cautious, and heavily attacked by enemies in the name of safeguarding the current situation, which is still considered better than the new one that one would like to build. In fact, the phrase that Camusso most often pronounces is: "These bosses want to go back to the 800th century".
“Certainly, however – says Giuseppe Roma – even Fiat has made some communication errors and still does. In fact, the impression is that we are dealing with a stateless company, which tends to sever all ties not only with politics, but also with the social fabric of this country. If you decide to leave Confindustria, then you should strengthen your direct presence in the area and with the various branches of civil society, precisely to keep channels of explanation and dialogue open in the absence of which the company really risks being perceived by everyone, not only by historical opponents, as a foreign body, a mysterious and often annoying object. And this is the opposite of the national champion who puts the Italian flag on the 500 and on the overalls of his workers”.
Then there is the question of what Confindustria is and what it will be after the breakup of Fiat. The right-wing newspapers rejoice because they think Marchionne wanted to distance himself from the more recent attitudes of Marcegaglia who shows strong intolerance towards the inaction of the Berlusconi government. Nothing further from the thought of Marchionne who, in case, accuses Confindustria of excessive tactics, of being like the Government, always ready to take a step back in order not to lose the consent of the CGIL or some other pressure group.
“The representations – says the director of Censis – are all in a bit of a crisis. Confindustria is a very large and bureaucratic machine that runs the risk of losing its momentum in terms of general politics, and its ability to aggregate in the area due to the impossibility of responding to the new needs of companies that are no longer satisfied with traditional services, but have new needs of development of its business. Perhaps it will be necessary to think about a new reform but I don't know if this will be possible with the now preponderant presence of public enterprises which are destined to count more and more and which, moreover, are increasingly linked to politics."
The heart of the problem is that of reforms. Making them means profoundly changing the behavior of many social groups and above all of the hundreds of thousands of people who live around politics. Who can ever do that? Marchionne, in his small way, tries to move a few steps. Will Confindustria be able to regain that role of agent of innovation which perhaps in other circumstances it had covered with greater consistency?
