Taken aback by the sensational announcement of the serious (irreversible) disease that has struck Sergio Marchionne and from the effects that followed on the media and on public opinion, the political and trade union left remained silent for a few hours - which was soundly defeated by the Italian-Canadian manager - but which has never resigned - not even in the face of results that belied his gloomy forecasts – to admit that he was wrong when he contested the Pomigliano agreement and similar ones that followed in the other Italian plants.
Then, in fear, that they were recognized in article mortis to Marchionne those merits that were denied him in 2010, when the whole Circus Barnum of the ''Italietta of rent and blackmail'' (as Marco Bentivogli wrote) began to side with Maurizio Landini and Fiom, various exponents of that area they decided to take the field in defense of their ''as we were''. For all we resume Guglielmo Epifani's comments – former secretary of the CGIL now deputy of Liberi e Uguali (to whom?) – according to whom “Marchionne was a very skilled finance man capable of using financial resources, including loans, to save and relaunch the company. On the other hand, the industrial result is less brilliant, where all the production and sales objectives have not been achieved, and even by a lot". And after indicating the critical issues for Italy deriving from FCA's choice to internationalise, Epifani talks about the approach Marchionne gave to industrial relations. In the article, the former CGIL leader does not mince words and speaks of it as the "most controversial" issue. "Marchionne - writes the former CGIL leader - in the early years he seeks the agreement and consensus of workers and trade unions". Then, continues Epifani, relations with the CGIL and Fiom pass into "open confrontation", or become "non-existent". While, Epifani underlines again, “on the other side of the ocean, relations with workers and the union remain positive and the pension fund helps Marchionne in a financial operation that strengthens Fiat's control over Chrysler. The relationship with the union thus becomes a function of the interests of the company and above all of the shareholders”. That's right: ''open confrontation'', ''non-existent relationships''. It can be seen that the trade union organizations that signed those agreements and clearly won in the referendums were not representative in the absence of the Fiom ''stamping''.
Furthermore, the judgment that transpires on the American union (the glorious UAW), which never tried to escape the necessary policy of sacrifices in order to save Chrysler, is unacceptable. It will then be appropriate to recall what the Pomigliano agreement (Giovambattista Vico plant) contained, since only 8 years separate us from those events, but that in the meantime Italy seems to have become another country, with a majority and a government which, if they were to find themselves – in a sort of throwback – to arbitrate the 2010 dispute between Marchionne and Landini, would certainly side with the latter.
Before moving on to the merits of the agreement, it is necessary to frame it in the industrial policy challenges that the group had to face. At stake were not only the 700 million euros relating to the transfer of Panda production from Poland to Italy, but also the allocation of the new products in a group now operating on a global scale. This pro-Italy turn was only possible on condition of raise labor productivity, starting from the Neapolitan plant, both by increasing shifts, rhythms and yields; and governing their clearly anomalous absences due to illness and absences from work.
The re-reading of an essay by Franco Carinci published on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the Workers' Statute helps us in this reconstruction. The hard core of the agreement consisted in adapting the company's production regime to the new model of work organization: individual working hours of 40 hours and continuous production process for 6 days 24 hours a week and distributed over 18 shifts, with half an hour of lunch at the end of the shift (n. 1); overtime to be paid at the request of the company increased to 120 hours per year (previously 40) (n.2); reassignment of duties to ensure a correct relationship between direct and indirect (n. 3); internal mobility from area to area to guarantee the quantity of production foreseen for each line and shift, with a correct production/staff ratio (n. 4); adoption of the Ergo-UAS system, referred to in the technical annex n. 2 (considered an element of the agreement), with the provision of three breaks of ten minutes each (first two of thirty minutes) (n. 5); productive recoveries carried out, as well as in the half-hour interval between shifts, also in the 18th shift and on individual rest days, subject to joint examination with the Rsu (no. 7).
On the front of the remuneration, the exclusion of any corporate integration was sanctioned for workers placed in Cigs, obliged to participate in the training necessary to activate the new work organization (n. 6): the Cigs was destined to last for two years from the start of the investments (No. 9); the abolition of salary items, by grouping them under the item "non-absorbable individual super minimum", according to flat-rate amounts, reserved for employees already in force, with the exclusion of new hires (n. 10). On each of these points relating to work organization and pay there was a lively controversy, which, however, reached its apex, with the summoning into question, as well as the law, of the Constitution itself, with regard to three other points: n. 8 (“absenteeism”), no. 14 (“liability clause”) and no. 15 ("supplementary clauses of the individual employment contract").
Point no. 8, onabsenteeism, provided for: a) to "counteract anomalous forms of absenteeism that occur on the occasion of particular events not attributable to epidemiological forms ... in the event that the percentage of absenteeism is significantly higher than the average ... the non-coverage of remuneration by the company" , with the possibility that a joint commission examines «the particularly critical cases to which the above provisions should not be applied»; b) given "the high level of absenteeism ... in conjunction with the political, administrative and referendum elections ... and football matches (ed)" the possibility of closing the plant "for the time necessary", with an appeal for salary coverage «to collective wage institutions (such as holidays)» and with recovery of production «without additional charges to be borne by the company»; c) «the recognition of rest/payments pursuant to current legislation on electoral matters ... exclusively in respect of duly appointed presidents, secretaries and polling station scrutineers». Paragraph no. 14, on the liability clause (aimed at countering strikes promoted by spontaneous coalitions or by wholly minority trade unions), was by far the most controversial. It was made up of two parts, which had, as a premise, the fact that the agreement "constitutes an integrated whole, so that all its clauses are correlated and inseparable from each other". The recipients of the obligations were the trade union organizations and the Rsu, naturally if and as signatories.
There were various behaviors for which the recipients were held responsible: in before purchasing, part «the non-compliance with the commitments undertaken or behaviors suitable for making the conditions agreed for the implementation of the Plan unenforceable and the consequent rights or the exercise of the powers granted to the Company put in place by the trade union organizations and/or by the RSU, also at of individual components"; in the second, the «individual and/or collective behavior of workers likely to violate, in whole or in part and to a significant extent, the clauses of this agreement or to render unenforceable the rights or the exercise of powers recognized by it to the Company» . But the sanctions were only borne by the trade unions and of the RSU: the before purchasing, part contemplated the release of the Company: a) "from the obligations deriving from this agreement"; b) as well as ... «from those deriving from the Metalworkers' CCNL concerning: – union contributions, – paid union leave for 24 hours per quarter for members of the national and provincial governing bodies of the trade union organisations»; c) as well as «by the recognition and consequent application of the more favorable conditions with respect to the Metalworkers' CCNL contained in the company agreements regarding: – additional trade union permits beyond the hours established by law 300/70 for members of the RSU, – recognition of the figure of trade union expert and related trade union permits»; and the second referred to the first, providing for the Company "the same liberating effects as indicated in the previous part of this point". In turn, the No. 15, on the supplementary clauses of the individual employment contract, sanctioned for individual employees, that «the clauses of this agreement integrate the regulation of the individual employment contracts within which they are to be considered correlated and inseparable, so that the violation by the individual employee of one of them constitutes a disciplinary infringement referred to in the lists, gradually, of the contractual articles relating to conservative disciplinary measures and dismissals for misconduct and entails the loss of effectiveness with regard to him of the other clauses". At the end of paragraph no. 16, envisaged the establishment of a Joint Conciliation Commission, «preferential and privileged forum for examining any specific situations that give rise to the non-compliance with the commitments undertaken by the trade union organizations that signed this agreement as well as for examining the effectiveness of the consequences set forth therein in the towards the Trade Union Organisations, it being understood that, in the absence of a joint assessment by the parties, the Company will proceed according to the provisions of point 14 of this agreement». And "during the aforementioned procedure, the union organizations will not resort to direct action and ... on the company side, it will not proceed unilaterally".
Basically, in Pomigliano and in the other establishments, Fiat wanted to improve the saturation of the plants and obtain an increase in the cars produced, objectives for the achievement of which he had asked for and obtained (from top trade unions anything but ) those derogations that are released, through negotiation, in all European and developed countries where normal industrial relations existed and were practiced (the Spain of the socialist Zapatero, at that time, promoted by decree law the application prevalence of widely derogatory company bargaining). Yet, in those months, the vast majority of labor lawyers (in harmony with the establishment of every vocation) did not hesitate to side with Fiom which accused Lingotto of wanting to impose a nineteenth-century method of industrial relations. Those same political and union forces convinced that, after all, the agreement had to be signed (especially after the favorable outcome of the referendum among the workers), did so in the name of a sort of state of necessity. And when Minister Maurizio Sacconi got Parliament to approve a provision – article 8 of decree 138/2011 – which could solve the problem of the Fiat agreements, overcoming the limits of the protocol of 28 June 2011 (also signed by the CGIL), which admitted, under certain conditions, recourse to contractual derogations, but excluded from its application, because signed previously, the agreements of Pomigliano and Mirafiori (thus leaving them at the mercy of judicial appeals brought by Fiom in various courts scattered throughout the peninsula), even Emma Marcegaglia's Confindustria, in September of that same year, resigned itself to an agreement with the trade union confederations in which it undertook not to apply, through agreements at a decentralized level, that rule of a derogatory nature with respect to national contracts and legal provisions . Which led to theexit of Fiat from Federmeccanica and Confindustria, a fact that produced a genetic mutation of the very nature of the Viale dell'Astronomia organization.
In recent days, President Vincenzo Boccia has had the courage to recite (on behalf of his predecessors at the helm of Confindustria) the mea culpa, an example that others have been careful not to follow. «Sergio Marchionne was a man of rupture, today we would say disruptive – acknowledged Boccia in an interview with Corriere della Sera – And the decision he made then will remain as the most clamorous gesture in the history of Confindustria. But the homage I want to pay him in such dramatic hours is to recognize how the caesura is served. It happens that individual companies can give life to more advanced practices than the representative organizations, after all we go on through traumas or comparisons. Marchionne chose the first route and we instead arrived later, but the landing place is the same». But how far is this port still?
