Another piece of industrial history of Turin issued for sale. After the sale last year of the historic Lingotto office building, an iconic image of the Marchionne era, to the multinational Reply (an IT company founded by Mario Rizzante, a former Fiat employee), today stellantis, the automotive group born from the merger of FCA with PSA, has put the factory up for sale symbol of the pinnacle of the product strategy of Sergio Marchionne, the Premium cars of Maserati brand.
The Grugliasco factory
In August 2009, in a surprise move, Marchionne decided to take over dalle ex Carrozzerie Bertone, in extraordinary administration, lo Grugliasco plant, to manage production of high-end cars, taking advantage of all the opportunitiesagreement with Chrysler and the consequent opening of the American market.
The Bertone plant, one of the historic names of Turin coachbuilders such as Pininfarina, Ghia, Vignale, had been conceived for the production of sports and niche cars and now, once the painting department had been renovated and expanded, it could be dedicated to production of important cars like the Maserati.
I Bertone workers they remained among the last representatives of that tradition of workers with barbiss (who know how to moustache even flies) in mechanical work and with little golden hands in car bodywork.
A heritage of human resources not to be wasted, even if, to increase production volumes such as to guarantee the economic return on the investment (close to one billion euros), it was necessary to be able to integrate the handmade philosophy that had characterized the historical production of Carrozzeria Bertone with a new industrial approach to radically improve technical-organizational processes and increase production volumes.
The philosophy of. would also have been extended to the former Bertone factory World Class Manufacturing, of which Sergio Marchionne was the prophet in those years, where heavy and repetitive work is carried out by robots and ergonomics is the pillar of work organisation.
The main production center of premium cars
THEobjective of the acquisition of the plant was to make it the largest production center for Premium cars, the Maseratis, allowing the return to work of the 1100 former Bertone workers who had been on zero-hour layoffs for over 5 years and the increase in the workforce to over two thousand units.
Il industrial project, thanks to the proximity between Grugliasco and Mirafiori, less than 5 km, envisaged technological and logistical synergies between the two plants, creating an automotive production hub for Premium cars, a true "automotive luxury boutique".
The Grugliasco plant will be named after the Lawyer and will take the name of AGAP (the acronym for Lawyer Gianni Agnelli Plant). In 2016 the Industrial Union of Turin will hold the annual meeting of its members in a warehouse of the factory close to the assembly lines with the honors hosted by Sergio Marchionne.
While Maserati supercars will continue to be produced in Modena, from 2012, with the renovated Grugliasco plant, production of the Maserati, Quattroporte, Ghibli and Levante will be allocated to the Turin Premium hub with an objective of an annual production of 50.000 cars. The objective was achieved in 2016 and 2017 and partially in 2018.
Sales crisis and stoppage of activities
The following years led to a contraction in sales, also following the international crises, until Maserati production was entrenched in Mirafiori alone with the cessation of activity from 2021, with the exception of the bodywork department, of the Grugliasco plant now for sale. Maseratis will continue to be produced in Mirafiori where production of the electric Maserati will also start in 2024.
The link between Turin and Marchionne
The acquisition of the Grugliasco plant it did not only have an industrial value, but strengthened also the bond, today more and more regretted, between Sergio Marchionne and the Turin people.
In the previous two years, Marchionne had already consolidated the production structure of Mirafiori, which had been in decline for years, with the start of production of the Fiat Grande Punto and the MiTo Alfa Romeo, relaunching a climate of trust not only among the workers but also Citywide. Turin was no longer the factory town or the "Detroit of Europe" of the sixties and seventies, but Fiat still employed over twenty thousand workers.
Il rescue of the former Carrozzerie Bertone from the extraordinary administration was to strengthen the The Turin people "cheer" for Marchionne starting from their mayor, the mayor Sergio Chiamparino.
The issue with the unions and Landini's follies
The rescue plan he could have moreover not come true for the principled opposition of the then general secretary of Fiom-Cgil Maurizio Landini had, also through judicial proceedings, against Fiat the new National Labor Contract, not signed by Fiom, because it was deemed illegitimate and even unconstitutional in terms of limiting the right to strike.
The problem was that, unlike the other Fiat plants in the auto sector, where the Fiom-Cgil was in a clear minority, both in terms of members and union representatives, compared to the other metalworking unions that had signed the Fiat Contract, the former Bertone was one of the Fiommine strongholds in the Turin area with its "dominant" majority of over 700 registered out of 1100 workers and 10 out of 15 union representatives.
The Turin-based Fiom was also aware that in that plant it had not been possible to apply the Fiat Contract following the "niet" of its general secretary, Marchionne would have abandoned the project and started the search for a new allocation for the investment where Fiom had been in the minority. It was also feared that Fiat would return the former Bertone to the commissioners of the extraordinary administration.
It was therefore necessary to find one pragmatic solution that involved the union with the largest number of members among the workers, because otherwise it would have been impossible to carry out the Maserati project in Grugliasco.
The way was found by the then Turin secretary of Fiom, George Airaudo, then senator of the left and now Piedmontese secretary of the CGIL, with company union representation at a unitary level: the draft of the agreement that implemented the Fiat Contract would be presented by the union representatives to the workers' assembly and subjected to a referendum.
All 'workers' assembly the union representatives of Fiom also contributed to the Yup with Fiom leaving the final decision to the union delegates.
Al referendum with a plebiscite percentage close to 90% of the former Bertone workers said yes to restart the lines of the Grugliasco factory.
What should have been become the luxury hub for Premium cars it turned out, however, after the death of Sergio Marchionne, a half-realized project.
For sale “online”
Over 12 years after the production restart of the Grugliasco plant, today the Group stellantis, led by Carlos Tavares, in fact he decided to dispose of it, moreover in an unusual way with the sales advertisement of an industrial warehouse on one of the best known real estate trading platforms in Italy.
From the photos published in the advertisement, even if there was no direct reference to the property, it was immediately clear which "shed" it was, given that the Maserati sign remained in place on the facade.
A historic farewell for what had become one of the most advanced and modern factories in Italy, but which according to Giorgio Airaudo, and not only that, could be theright opportunity for Elon Musk for the second European production site of its Teslas, after the one in Berlin.
