Italian autoworkers strike over plant closings

[Communist]

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Impact on Chrysler as
Italian autoworkers strike over plant closings (http://www.workers.org/2010/world/italy_0114/)

By Martha Grevatt

Published Jan 7, 2010 4:57 PM

In December a two-day strike halted production at the FIAT (http://www.fiat.com/cgi-bin/pbrand.dll/FIAT_COM/contact/[email protected]@@@1458356526.1262977005 @@@@&BV_EngineID=ccceadejfmjhejkcefecejgdfkhdfjh.0) automobile assembly plant in Termini Imerese, near (http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=rYK&q=Termini%20Imerese&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl) Palermo, in Sicily. Workers were protesting FIAT’s plans to shut down the plant, which employs 1,400 workers, this year. As of Jan. 3 the Termini Imarese workers are on temporary layoff until Jan. 7.

Prior to the two-day work stoppage, workers in Termini Imarese held a general strike on Dec. 14 to protest the closing. Over 10,000 workers and youth attended a rally that day, which also had the support of local clergy and elected officials, according to the Federation of Italian Metalworkers (FIOM (http://www.fiom.cgil.it/)). Earlier in the month FIOM struck the Sicilian LEA plant, which supplies the FIAT plant and may also close.

Sicily has one of the highest unemployment rates in all of Europe; unemploy (http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/2009/03/sicily_1.html)ment there is much higher than on the Italian mainland. The island will take another strong blow if FIAT and its suppliers cease production.
This strike completes a year of sporadic auto strikes by FIOM. FIAT workers in Pomigliano d’Arco, near (http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Pomigliano%20d%E2%80%99Arco&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl) Naples, struck in solidarity with the Sicilian workers and to protest extended layoffs and the possible closing of their plant.

Italian autoworkers have a long history of militant class struggle, going back to the factory occupations of 1919-1921 and the powerful movement of 1968-1969. A two-month strike in 2002 halted the closing of the Termini Imarese plant at that time. Nevertheless the Italian working class, like workers all over the world, has been devastated by decades of capitalist restructuring.

On May 17, 15,000 workers demonstrated outside FIAT’s world headquarters in Turin. At that time FIAT’s takeover of Chrysler was all but certain and the company was trying to purchase General Motors’ European operations. Workers came from all over Italy and Sicily to protest anticipated job cuts.

The theme of the May protest, “We are FIAT (http://www.france24.com/en/20090516-thousands-fiat-employees-take-streets-turin-job-security-takeover-opel-worries),” was a direct challenge to the capitalist media’s portrayal of FIAT CEO Sergio Marchionne — who is now the CEO of Chrysler — as the person who singlehandedly “turned the company around.” While FIAT was unsuccessful in acquiring GM’s Opel, the latest “turnaround” plan — to increase production by 50 percent while simultaneously closing plants and cutting jobs — is obviously an attack on the workers. This is the purpose of the $8 billion investment FIAT plans to make in its Italian operations. The company will also begin building FIAT vehicles at Chrysler plants in Mexico, Canada and possibly the U.S.

This is the same “turnaround (http://www.ford.com/about-ford/news-announcements/press-releases/press-releases-detail/pr-ford-motor-company-submits-29508)” strategy — hailed (http://autos.ca.msn.com/editors-picks/article.aspx?cp-documentid=18737108) in capitalist circles — by which Ford has returned to making billions in profits. In the past few years Ford has reduced its union workforce by over 50 percent. Now Ford’s market share (http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2010/01/ford-sales-up-33-in-december-market-share-increased-in-2009.html)has increased (http://www.autoevolution.com/news/ford-grows-33-manages-first-market-share-gain-in-14-years-15111.html) in relation to GM and Chrysler and its overall sales are improving. Its stock prices have nearly quintupled since the beginning of the year. Yet the company just announced plans to offer another round of buyouts designed to permanently shrink the workforce even more.

This is exactly what Marchionne hopes to achieve at Chrysler. While projecting increased market share, Chrysler has not reversed plans to close plants in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. At the same time, the drive to intensify the brutal restructuring is behind the latest managerial shakeup — the departure of CEO Fritz Henderson, who had replaced Rick Wagoner earlier this year — at GM.

Workers all over the world need to unite and militantly resist the attacks on their jobs. This is the only “turnaround” strategy that has any hope of success.

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[Communist]

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ITALY AND BELGIUM
Autoworkers resist plant closings (http://www.workers.org/2010/world/autoworkers_0218/)

By Martha Grevatt
Published Feb 11, 2010

As in the U.S., autoworkers in Europe are confronted with a capitalist restructuring agenda that involves plant closings and mass layoffs. Workers are fighting back on more than one front.

http://www.workers.org/2010/world/italy_0218.jpg
On Feb. 3, Italian autoworkers staged a four-
hour nationwide strike against Fiat at Termini
Imerese plant, which employs 1,400 workers
on the island of Sicily.

Upon learning on Jan. 21 that General Motors’ Opel division would close their assembly plant, union members in Antwerp, Belgium, blockaded the parking lot and prevented new vehicles from leaving the premises. As of this writing, round-the-clock picketing is still holding up vehicle transport.

The 2,600 workers at the Opel plant are outraged at GM’s decision to close their plant later this year. Recently workers agreed to take pay cuts, while the Belgian government assisted in the transatlantic GM bailout, to the tune of half a billion euros. For 85 years GM has made profits off the backs of the Antwerp workers.

The Labor Party of Belgium has launched a solidarity campaign, engaging in mass distribution of cards and signs with the slogan, “Don’t touch my job.” Thousands have signed an online petition in solidarity with the Belgian GM workers. (www.solidarityforopelantwerp.be (http://www.solidarityforopelantwerp.be))

The Opel workers were inspired by the two-week blockade of Anheuser-Busch InBev — maker of the world-famous Stella Artois beer — that succeeded in halting that company’s plans to axe 10 percent of the workforce.

Meanwhile, on Feb. 3 Italian autoworkers staged a four-hour nationwide strike to warn Fiat against closing the Termini Imerese plant, which employs 1,400 workers on the island of Sicily. This was the latest of a number of militant protests intended to keep the Sicilian plant open.

“Termini Imerese should not be shut down,” said union leader Gianni Rinaldini. “There is no overcapacity in Italy.” (Agence France-Presse, Feb. 3)

The Feb. 3 shutdown was the first strike affecting all of Fiat’s 80,000 Italian employees since 2004 — the year Sergio Marchionne became CEO and launched a “turnaround” plan to produce more vehicles with fewer workers. As the new CEO of Chrysler, Marchionne is closing plants and reducing the U.S. workforce as well.

Prompted by the determination of the Fiat workers to defend their right to their jobs, the Italian government is considering ending federal subsidies to the company unless it reverses the decision to close Termini Imerese.


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Verbatim copying and distribution of
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[Communist]

ITALY: Fiat workers down tools in Sicily closure protest (http://www.just-auto.com/article.aspx?id=103038)
Simon Warburton

A series of wildcat strikes has swept across Fiat (http://www.just-auto.com/factsheet.aspx?id=208)'s Italian plants today (3 February) as workers downed tools in protest at plans to close the Termini Imerese factory in Sicily.
Some 14% of Fiat's 32,000 Italian workforce walked out in a bid to halt the shutdown of the Sicily plant slated for December this year.

Fiat wants to transfer production of its Lancia (http://www.just-auto.com/factsheet.aspx?id=212) Ypsilon from the Sicily factory where it makes 60,000 units per year, but the plan has provoked the ire of unionised labour.

"It is a one-day strike but this has been going on since Christmas," a Fiat spokesman told just-auto from Turin. "We had workers chaining themselves to council offices in Palermo for example.

"This plant is a small assembly [unit] in Sicily where we build the Ypsilon. There is little infrastructure so we have to export componentry to the island - we are losing around EUR1,000 (US$1,390) per car. It would be cheaper to send everyone home and keep them on full pay until nearly retirement age."

Fiat maintains it has "no issue" with the Sicily workforce or the quality of its finished product but "unfortunately, it is located in the wrong place."

An offer has been made to bring Fiat Panda production from Poland to Italy - "a net gain of around 300,000 units," but there will nonetheless be some job losses among Termini Imerese's 1,200 staff.

Fiat is moving Panda production as the Poland plant is "bursting at the seams" and insists it needs to reduce pressure on the factory. "We want to give Poland production of the new Ypsilon," added the spokesman.

Further comments are expected from the Italian unions involved.

[Red Commissar]

Italian workers have always amused me. They're really a hell lot less scared of striking, to the degree that an American businessman would get a heart attack. It is good that they do so, rather than fall into the trap perception that "hard-working" employees would never strike.

One case of Italian striking,

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__UIs6-gaeYw/R5SN82HuoCI/AAAAAAAAGfs/SeZ55flPkdg/s400/Italian%2520strike.jpg

[cyu]

One case of Italian striking


Nice pic - what were the details of that action?

[Red Commissar]

Nice pic - what were the details of that action?

It happened back in 2007. There was a dispute over gas prices, toll fees for truckers, working hours, foreign competition, etc- and the various truckers' unions demanded the government take action to rectify it. The government gave a weak "compromise, and as a result it's estimated that the vast majority of truckers unions went on strike and blocked major roads as you see in the picture, to prevent scabs and other people from running supplies, and as a result it also really caused Italy to shut down because nothing could get anywhere.

I don't know specifically where that toll gate is, but it's an example of what happened across the country, and representative of how far the unions in Italy are willing to go, even if they won't be popular with the public (that particular strike happened in the end of December, so it ran into Christmas holiday).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7140172.stm

There's a video in that link too.