Unions draw up demands for new company agreement at Fiat

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In June 2000, metalworkers' trade unions presented a platform of demands to the Fiat motor manufacturing group for a new company agreement, which may mark the beginning of a new form of decentralised bargaining in Italy. The unions' demands are influenced by the company's new organisational structure and by the alliance agreement recently signed with the US-based General Motors. The main demands concern employment, job-classification levels, industrial relations and profit-related pay.

In September 1999, the metalworking federations affiliated to the Cgil, Cisl and Uil trade union confederations - Fiom, Fim and Uilm respectively - declared void their 1996 "integrative agreement" (ie a company-level agreement within the framework of the metalworking sectoral agreement) with the Fiat SpA motor manufacturing company. They then drew up and presented a joint platform of demands for a new form of company agreement. The unions took this course of action in the light of market globalisation, and the perceived inadequacy of the existing bargaining procedures to face this development. The unions were also influenced by the alliance agreement signed by Fiat and the US-based General Motors (GM) in April 2000 (IT0004151F) and the organisational and production changes provided for by this agreement.

The preparation of the joint platform of demands has been very difficult and complex. A document was discussed by the Fiat Rsu worker representative body during the first two weeks of June 2000. After the preliminary meetings, a draft platform was developed, and the final version was presented to, and discussed by, workers in all the company's plants. The next step is the approval of the platform through a referendum which held on 11-13 July 2000. The discussion has also involved workers in the companies which have been created through outsourcing processes, because the trade union are determined to apply the same contractual conditions to all the workers employed at all stages of Fiat's production cycle.

Through their new platform of demands, the unions seek to:

1. formalise guarantees on employment continuity in all Italian plants following the Fiat-GM agreement. The unions demand a serious commitment to support plants in the South of Italy and to integrate them into the production cycle. This could be done by locating subcontractor companies in the South, thus increasing employment in the Mezzogiorno;

2. introduce mandatory prior consultation procedures for all the company's strategic decisions with organisational implications. The unions want the "observatory on company strategy" created by the 1996 agreement to be entitled to express a compulsory and preventive opinion, if not a binding one, in cases of significant changes in the company's strategies and organisation, including cases of company alliances, transfers or acquisitions;

3. improve the control of trade unions over the labour market and labour flexibility within the company. The unions want to examine in each plant the use of flexible forms of employment and in particular of "atypical" employment contracts such as fixed-term contracts. According to the unions, recourse to atypical contracts (such as fixed-term contracts, temporary agency work contracts and seasonal contracts) should be limited "to periodic and temporary needs". The intention is to limit as far as possible the recourse to this kind of employment contract and to transform them, wherever allowed by market conditions, into open-ended contracts;

4. strengthen participatory industrial relations through the creation or strengthening of joint bodies. The unions want to extend the participatory structures to all productive units (cars, lorries, airplanes etc) and to strengthen existing observatories on industrial policies and vocational training. Organisational and technological changes are seen as making necessary the identification of new occupational profiles and the review of existing ones, and the platform thus proposes the creation of a joint committee which, within three months, will have to define a specific "system of evaluation of skills and performance" in order to define new job-classification levels; and

5. introduce significant innovations in the areas of working time and pay, including new regulations on overtime work and increased pay through the creation of a system linking pay to company profitability. On working time, the platform seeks an extension of the right of workers' representatives to be informed on overtime work, with an obligation on the company to provide the Rsu, every three months, with information on the overall overtime hours worked by the personnel and the names of the workers involved. The unions also want the introduction of an "hours' bank" (banca delle ore), allowing for the transformation of part of overtime hours into paid leave. On pay, the platform seeks for an annual wage increase of ITL 2.2 million (EUR 1,136), through the creation of a "quality-related pay" system and an increase in existing bonuses. The unions also want new benefits such as occupational social security and medical services.

Finally, the proposed platform contains two important novelties. The first concerns relations between the unions and non-union members: for the first time, the unions are asking workers who are not union members to make a voluntary one-off payment to the trade unions of ITL 30,000 (EUR 15), as a contribution to the renewal of the integrative agreement. The second concerns demands for increased workers' and trade union participation in the company's strategic decision-making. This subject continues to divide the Italian trade union movement, with Cisl and Uil in favour and Cgil opposed.