The one launched in 2010 by Fiat in Pomigliano was a real revolution in the world of factory work destined to extend to the whole system with the Jobs act. A revolution which does not imply the disappearance of the trade union but which pushes the workers' representatives to change their attitude, passing from pure claims to sharing corporate objectives which concern the entire community of workers. In short, the union must pass (and in large part it has passed) from a pure ideological antagonism to a position of greater responsibility for the destiny of the company, exercising its role in fields and in different ways than in the past.
Paolo Rebaudengo, who for many years was responsible for industrial relations at Fiat, experienced first-hand the whole story that brought Fiat out of Confindustria in order to acquire a first-level independent contract based on the new principles of partnership between company and workers. Faced with the demands posed by global competitiveness, it is necessary for individuals and union representatives to responsibly assume commitments in the face of obviously other commitments on the part of the company. In short, an exchange based on mutual trust and cooperation.
Rebaudengo tells in an agile volume that is arriving in bookstores, the story that led to the "New rules in the factory" (Ed Il Mulino Euro 14) reconstructing the facts on the basis of unquestionable documents, without ideological lenses. From them he derives judgments on the behavior of the various protagonists of the story that appear to flow naturally from the events told. The preface by Giuseppe Berta is then an admirable synthesis of the profound economic, political and social meaning of the revolution started by Marchionne five years ago and which is now leading to a new paradigm of work. From reading these pages, the serious underestimation that many economists and politicians make of the new labor market rules that have just been passed by the Renzi government after a furious battle against the CGIL dragged by Fiom into ultra-conservative positions stands out clearly.
The Fiat contract and the new rules on the labor market, which must be completed by a law on company representation and bargaining, are leading to a radical change in the way of conceiving work. By now there is no longer the mass worker, the one who only sells his physical strength and who is therefore totally interchangeable, but the new production systems require a responsible worker, capable of actively participating in the regularity of the production flow, and also committed to constantly improve through training periods. The exact opposite of what was claimed by Fiom in 2008 when Fiat launched an overall training plan for all personnel for Pomigliano with plant downtime for a good two months, namely that it was a matter of "re-education courses" unknowingly echoing what it was in the Soviet Union or in Mao's China.
A relationship of trust between the company and individual workers and between the company and the trade union representation therefore becomes fundamental. From this arises one of the fundamental aspects of the whole Fiat affair (although in a normal country it would seem an oddity): that of the "collectability of the contract", i.e. the certainty of compliance with the commitments freely entered into by the parties.
Without retracing all the stages of the incredible union battle and its curious judicial aspects (which are there to testify to the reason why investors keep away from Italy), it is worth highlighting three relevant aspects: the uproar media coverage, the attitude of Confindustria, the role of Landini's Fiom.
Most of the media, spurred on by repeated positions taken by scholars and politicians, sided with the workers, and in particular with Fiom, considered the true representation of the workers, neglecting not only the results of the referendums in the various factories, but also the results of the elections for company representatives where the other trade unions almost always won the majority.
Rebaudengo criticizes Fiat itself a bit for not having been able to respond to the avalanche of denigratory accusations that were launched against Fiat from newspaper columns and television screens. But one wonders why Marchionne, who is an extraordinarily sharp man, didn't feel the need to organize a communication to reply to the assault by Landini and far-left thinkers. The logical answer could lie in the need for Fiat not to accept the current Italian debate, which is often considered only ideological or talkative, and therefore to mark its diversity with respect to this style of confrontation, which is then among those responsible for the country's decision-making paralysis .
Confindustria Rebaudengo does not spare even harsh criticism. “It is truly paradoxical – he writes – that a system that must represent and protect the interests of entrepreneurs, in the face of rules that give them more space and more autonomy, appears fearful and withdraws from it.” Confindustria's attitude towards the Sacconi law, which granted erga omnes validity to company contracts, is also absurd, given that the association undertook with the unions not to use that law.
And we come to Fiom. There is no doubt that his general secretary, Landini, who had just taken office at the top, took advantage of the Pomigliano dispute to make a name for himself. As has often happened in the past, the union uses Fiat as a symbol of its power by engaging in battles in car factories that it would never dream of engaging in other Italian companies. The union has often come out defeated, but it was a tactical defeat, which did not change the basic rules of industrial relations, while this time there was a strategic defeat which is leading to a profound change in the role of the union, making it more like the major unions in the West. The participatory line involves a focus of union activity on the factory and on the concrete interests of the workers, while Fiom remains anchored to the role of the union as a collector of social protest (and therefore a political subject) and as a representative of a general thought on work .
Landini is taking Fiom out of the factories (and in fact in Fiat its members are reduced to a flicker) to make it the driving force of a new subject of social protest and therefore of political influence. In reality, Fiom is accelerating the process of disintermediation of the large confederate entities which, with the end of the concertation with the Government and with the affirmation of company contracts, no longer have a decisive role in directing the country's economic policy.
In short, Landini is the classic "successful loser" who is based on the media fiction of his supremacy in the representation of workers; leadership that remains in the collective imagination even when in fact Fiom is no longer voted by factory workers, that is, by workers in the flesh, not by those represented in the TV debates. The problem is that Landini's overwhelming presence brings him success (at least in the media) and leaves the losses to the whole country which, following his ideas, would remain stuck at competitive levels incompatible with the recovery of decent growth rates in the market. global.
