Company agreement and code of conduct at the Bitron group

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In February 2004 the Italian multinational group Bitron and the sectoral trade union organisations affiliated to Cgil, Cisl and Uil signed a company agreement for two plants of the Group located in the Piedmont region and a code of conduct for the group’s activities located abroad.

The Bitron group employs more than 3,385 workers, has a turnover of about EUR 510 million and 12 plants, out of which four are located outside Italy. The Bitron Group can be, in all respects, defined a pocket multinational company.

Bitron produces automotive and appliance components for several industries. Electrolux, Merloni, Toyota, Renault, Fiat, Ford, Volkswagen are among its principal clients.

The industrial relations of the group have grown and were consolidated in time and with the expansion of the company. This consolidated practice led to the signature of a supplementary agreement with two of the group’s plants located in the Piedmont regions, the plant of Dronero and the plant of Rossana, in the Cuneo province, and to the signature of a code of conduct for the delocalised plants of the group.

Keeping a high corporate competitiveness is the principal objective of the company agreement and of the antidumping code signed in February 2005 by the company management and by the sectoral trade union organisations affiliated to the General Confederation of Italian Workers (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, Cgil), the Italian Confederation of Workers’ Unions (Confederazione Italiana Sindacato Lavoratori, Cisl), the Union of Italian Labour (Unione Italiana del Lavoro, Uil) respectively Fiom, Fim and Uilm

Among the most important novelties of the company agreement there are 150 remunerated hours of training leave under the form of foreign language courses, IT courses and specialist vocational refreshing courses as well as a flexible working time modulated on the needs of female employees. The Bitron group, given the high percentage of female workers employed in the two units (about 70% of total personnel), opted for a variety of part-time contracts among which night part-time work (16 or 24 hours worked only during the night), Saturday work (when employees works on Saturday will have a day off during the week), and part-time week-end (Saturday, Sunday plus another day of the week).

In order to meet the needs of female employees the Bitron group was also one of the first companies to introduce the hours bank. Many of the company choices have been made with the precise objective of combining workers’ family and professional needs and at the same time trying to keep clients and not to loose orders. The company’s high profitability and productivity permitted to both the company and the trade unions to negotiate an handsome performance-elated pay: about EUR 1,700 in four years.

The signature of the antidumping code for all the group’s foreign activities, on the other side, raises from the trade union need of establishing a fixed set of rules able to encourage fair competitiveness among all Bitron plants located abroad (Poland, Brazil, China and Spain).

The main items of the antidumping code agreed upon with the company are.

• application of the heath and safety regulation in the workplace;

• respect of labour rules and rights as well as equal opportunities rules;

• respect of trade union freedoms and autonomy;

• prohibition of child labour and respect of the International Labour Organisation regulation.

• respect of European environmental and safety regulations as regards the use of products.

As underlined by Giogio Ciravegna, provincial secretary of Fim-Cisl 'the trade union has always negotiated with the Bitron group a tailored working time schedule and work organisation able to permit just in time work and to satisfy, at the same time, all clients’ orders'.

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