In March 2001, an agreement was signed at the Fiat motor manufacturing plant at Cassino in southern Italy, in the context of the forthcoming production of a new model of car, the Stilo. The main points of the accord are: substantial new investments and recruitment; new vocational training measures; a new system of standard manufacturing times; and the introduction of new forms of work organisation, based on group work. The agreement was signed by two metalworkers' trade unions, Fim-Cisl and Uilm-Uil, but not by Fiom-Cgil, which opposed the provisions on manufacturing times.
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In March 2001, an agreement was signed at the Fiat motor manufacturing plant at Cassino in southern Italy, in the context of the forthcoming production of a new model of car, the Stilo. The main points of the accord are: substantial new investments and recruitment; new vocational training measures; a new system of standard manufacturing times; and the introduction of new forms of work organisation, based on group work. The agreement was signed by two metalworkers' trade unions, Fim-Cisl and Uilm-Uil, but not by Fiom-Cgil, which opposed the provisions on manufacturing times.
The Fiat plant at Cassino in southern Italy, which employs more than 4,500 workers, is presently modifying its production lines in order to start production in the second half of 2001 of a new model of car, "the Stilo", which will replace the current "Bravo" and "Brava" models. In view of these developments, Fiat management and trade unions decided to start company-level negotiations on the issues raised in November 2000. The negotiations were interrupted several times, due to the difficult ongoing negotiations over a new agreement for the whole Fiat group and over the national collective agreement for the metalworking sector. Negotiations finally resumed and resulted on 15 March 2001 in an agreement signed by management and the metalworkers' unions affiliated to the Cisl and Uil confederations. However, the Cgil affiliate decided against signing.
The agreement signed by Cisl and Uil provides for: investments of ITL 900 billion in the Cassino plant; an increase in the workforce, with the recruitment of 800 young workers; new training initiatives; and a new form of work organisation based on "group work, aimed at" guaranteeing the achievement of "quality objectives".
Workers will in future be organised in "groups" of 11 workers with a team leader. Team leaders will be elected by the group by rotation from among those members of the group who volunteer and are considered to have the necessary qualifications by management. The team leader will ensure that the group's operations are carried out properly and, when necessary, will train the members of the group. This new work organisation will be adopted on an experimental basis in the plant's assembly units. The parties will review the situation after 12 months.
The plant's existing joint training commission, will manage a vocational training plan specified in the new agreement, and generally examine the company's training programmes and initiatives.
The agreement also seeks to strengthen the plant's employee participation system through the creation of a new "integrated facility committee" (Commissione fabbrica integrata) which will deal, in a preventive way, with any problems arising from the organisational changes brought about by the launch of the new Stilo model and the new work organisation.
The deal also provides for: a third night shift; a collective rest break of 20 minutes during each shift; and two individual breaks of 10 minutes for each worker per day.
As in its other plants in southern Italy, Fiat intends to introduce at Cassino new standards to calculate manufacturing times (metricsa), and this is dealt with in the new agreement. For production lines such as those used in the automobile industry, there are international standards which define the times for all handling operations. These standards will be used, together with other time and motion records and the direct timing of the execution of specific working processes, to calculate the manufacturing times at Fiat Cassino. These times will notified to workers via a notice board and must be met. They will be reviewed after four months. Workers will be able to take any complaint about these manufacturing times directly to the head of the relevant department and, if no solution is found, the complaint may be submitted to the new integrated facility committee.
It was the company's wish to introduce the new manufacturing times that led the Cgil-affiliated metalworkers' union, Fiom-Cgil, not to sign the agreement. The Fiom-Cgil general secretary, Claudio Sabattini, stated that: "Fiat wants a new work organisation and manufacturing times which will entail a greater workload, but it does not want to discuss the manufacturing times with us." Mr Sabattini also criticised the decision of the two other confederal metalworkers' unions, Fim-Cisl and Uilm-Uil, to sign the agreement "at a time when there is an ongoing dispute with Fiat and before the new metalworking national collective agreement has been signed".
According to Lino Gottardello, the Fim-Cisl official responsible for the Fiat group, the new manufacturing times proposed by Fiat for Cassino improve on the arrangements already adopted by the group's other southern plants, and the evaluation procedures agreed represent a safeguard for the protection of workers. Roberto Di Maulo, the national secretary of Uilm-Uil, called the new deal a "very good agreement", underlining the provisions on training and the new form of group work.
Eurofound doporučuje citovat tuto publikaci následujícím způsobem.
Eurofound (2001), Agreement signed at Fiat Cassino, article.
