On 18-19 July 1998 an agreement was signed by trade unions and management on a restructuring plan for the Italian state-owned electrical engineering company, Ansaldo.
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On 18-19 July 1998 an agreement was signed by trade unions and management on a restructuring plan for the Italian state-owned electrical engineering company, Ansaldo.
Ansaldo Energia is a larger state-owned electrical engineering company (part of the IRI-Finmeccanica group) with factories located in Genoa, Legnano (Milan) and Gioia del Colle (Bari) which produce large-scale equipment for the production and distribution of electric power. Ansaldo is one of Italian industry's oldest companies and it has been one of the main actors in the country's industrial development for more than a century.
The problems experienced by the international and national market for electricity production plants has had important consequences for Ansaldo, which is too small to be able to compete on the international market and needs to find a strong technological and financial partner and to rationalise the production. As regards the quest for a new partner, negotiations with the Korea-based Daewoo have occurred, but it appears that they will not be concluded.
The sectoral trade union organisations - Fim-Cisl, Fiom-Cgil and Uilm-Uil- made agreement on a company restructuring plan conditional on the creation of a consortium between Ansaldo and Enel, the state-owned company for the production and distribution of electric power (which is now undergoing privatisation). An agreement on a restructuring plan was subsequently signed on 18-19 July 1998, and at the same time the creation of a consortium between Enel and Ansaldo was announced, aimed at reinforcing the position of the two companies on external markets. The consortium will receive important financial resources and technological know-how from both contractors. The Minister of Industry, Pierluigi Bersani, has guaranteed that very soon the consortium will be transformed into a joint-stock company able to operate on the international markets.
The Ansaldo Energia restructuring plan, which has a deadline of the year 2000, provides for a greater specialisation of the company's plants. The production of new steam turbines, alternators, turbogas turbines and magnets, plus the engineering, service, and plant activities will be concentrated in Genoa; carpentry, industrial turbines and all mechanical activities will be concentrated in Legnano; while the production of steam boilers will take place at Gioia del Colle.
The consequence of this reorganisation is a surplus of 1,695 workers. Of these, 800 are defined as "structurally redundant workers" and they therefore need to be placed outside the company, while the other 895 workers are defined as "cyclically redundant workers" and will be reabsorbed later on by the company. Of the 800 "structurally redundant workers" - mainly concentrated in Legnano (449), Genoa (291) and Gioia del Colle (60) plants - 370 will be registered in "mobility lists" and 430 of them will be eligible for the "special" wages guarantee fund (for details of these schemes, see IT9802319F). Of the 895 workers who will be reabsorbed by the company, 620 will be eligible for the wages guarantee fund on a rotation basis and 275 of them will be permanently on a redundancy scheme for two years.
A number of local-level meetings are foreseen for the management of the problems linked to redundant workers at Ansaldo. Local authorities will also take part in these meetings.
Pierluigi Bersani expressed considerable satisfaction at the establishment of the Enel-Ansaldo consortium and at the agreement on the restructuring plan. The social partners believe that Mr Bersani played an important mediation role during the difficult confrontation over the plan which lasted four months and which was characterised by extensive social tensions in the cities where the Ansaldo plants are located.
The managing director of Ansaldo, Rodolfo di Stefano, and the trade union officials who participated in the negotiation of the agreement - Francesco Ferrara (Fiom), Giovanni Contento (Uil) and Franco Aloia (Fim) - stated that they understood the sacrifice workers will have to go through, but they believe that the perspectives opened by this new agreement for the recovery of Ansaldo on the international markets are extremely positive.
Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.
Eurofound (1998), Restructuring plan agreed at Ansaldo, article.
