Northern companies foster southern employment

Download article in original language : IT9803156NIT.DOC

In March 1998 the Italian Government and the Confindustria employers' confederation signed a "twinning" agreement between companies in the North and South, providing for investment and job creation in the Manfredonia area.

On 10 March 1998 the Italian Government and the Confindustria employers' confederation signed a "twinning" (gemellaggio) agreement between Northern and Southern enterprises. The agreement foresees an investment of ITL 400 billion and the creation of 2,500 jobs in the area of Manfredonia (Foggia). Some 30 enterprises from Treviso and Vicenza in the North will invest in the Manfredonia area, thanks to the special conditions created by a new "area agreement" signed by trade unions, Confindustria and the Government (IT9803155N). The arrangement involves some of the most important companies in the two Northern provinces concerned - including the Benetton clothing company, which will invest ITL 30 billion and hire 150 workers.

The "twinning agreement" provides for:

• simplified and shorter administrative procedures for making investments;

• law enforcement and public order;

• bargaining flexibility;

• availability of incentives for enterprises; and

• allocation of funds for the training of workers.

The Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, has stressed the symbolic meaning of the agreement between the North and the South and has announced that other agreements of this kind will follow very soon. The president of Confindustria, Giorgio Fossa, hopes that the protocol will lead to a more general agreement "to be extended, in terms of its principles, to Italy's weakest areas". Mr Fossa recognises that the initiative has been possible thanks to the trade union confederations which signed the area agreement for Manfredonia and appeared to be willing to increase labour flexibility.

Mr Prodi has announced that when negotiations between the Government and social partners are resumed, he will propose a procedural agreement using the Manfredonia twinning agreement as an example to follow in conducting employment policies for the Italian South or Mezzogiorno.

Trade union organisations were not been invited to the signing ceremony of the twinning agreement and Natali Forlani, secretary of the Cisl confederation, said that this exclusion is "unacceptable" and based only on propagandistic reasons (quoted in Il Sole 24 Ore, 11 March 1998).