Agreement on contentious issue of Saturday work signed at Iveco

In early September 2006, an agreement on working on Saturdays was signed at the Iveco motor company. Located in Brescia in northern Italy, Iveco is part of the Fiat group and manufactures industrial vehicles, such as vans and trucks. After much debate between the company’s social partners, an agreement was reached on the introduction of Saturday work in two shifts for September and October 2006. However, in a number of other companies within the metalworking sector, negotiations on the same issues are still marked by conflict.

On 4 September 2006, an agreement to introduce Saturday work for the months of September and October 2006 was signed at the Iveco motor company, located in Brescia in the Lombardia province of northern Italy. The agreement was signed by the local trade union representatives of the Italian Federation of Metalworkers (Federazione Italiana Metalmeccanici, Fim-Cisl), the Italian Federation of White-Collar and Blue-Collar Metalworkers (Federazione Impiegati Operai Metalmeccanici, Fiom-Cgil), the Italian Metalworkers’ Union (Unione Italiana Lavoratori Metalmeccanici, Uilm-Uil), and the Italian Metalworking and Allied Industries Autonomous Trade Union Federation (Sindacato Autonomo Metalmeccanici e Industrie Collegate, Fismic) (IT9709211F), together with the unitary workplace union structure (RSU), and the Iveco company management, assisted by the Brescia Industrial Association (AIB). Iveco is part of the larger Fiat group and manufactures industrial vehicles, such as vans and trucks.

Content of agreement

The Iveco agreement emerged after a long debate between the company and the employee representatives, which is unlikely to end with the signing of the agreement. In other companies within the Fiat group, and in the metalworking sector in general, the recent revival of demand for products has induced companies to enter into discussions with trade unions, with a view to agreeing on a strategy to increase productivity. In order to meet this increase in demand, Iveco has asked for the ‘institutionalisation’ of additional shifts in working hours. The trade unions for their part tend to favour the hiring of additional workers in order to cope with the extra demand for products.

To date, production peaks at Iveco, as at the other companies in the Fiat group, have been handled on a voluntary basis, by resorting to overtime. However, for some months, Iveco has asked for the institutionalisation of additional working hours, while also declaring itself ready to use temporary agency workers for Saturday and Sunday work.

In order to meet ‘contingent productive needs’, the agreement provides for seven-hour shifts to be worked from 06.00 to 13.00 on alternate Saturdays in September 2006 and until 21 October 2006. The company has also stated that it needs two seven-hour shifts, from 12.30 and 19.30, to be worked on alternate Saturdays on 9, 16, 23 and 30 September 2006.

Workers agreeing to do these shifts will receive an extra €15 for the first shift and €35 more for the second shift. In November 2006, they will receive a one-off payment of €130. Had this agreement not been reached, the work would have been undertaken by workers willing to do overtime who would have received the normal rate of pay. The agreement covers around 400 of the 3,000 employees at the Iveco plant, including workers engaged in assembly (fittings and some line operators), testing, inspection, finishing, and harnessing.

Reactions of social partners

The trade unions have expressed satisfaction with the agreement reached at Iveco Brescia. The General Secretary of Uilm-Uil, Antonino Regazzi, has stressed that ‘it is an important agreement because, although it is not the first of its kind to be signed in the Fiat group, it has been reached at a plant where there has been a high level of conflict’.

According to Bruno Vitali, the National Secretary and Head of the auto section of Fim-Cisl, the agreement is a step towards the ‘revitalisation’ of a plant where ‘there has always been a climate of strong conflict, a feature stressed by the company together with a certain rigidity by the unions’.

General Director of the Italian Federation of Metalworking Industries (Federazione Sindacale dell’Industria Metalmeccanica Italiana, Federmeccanica), Roberto Santarelli, commented that ‘the Brescia agreement is undoubtedly important because it concerns Iveco Brescia and in view of its contents; however, for the time being it is difficult to say whether it marks the beginning of a new phase’.

The same need for an agreement has arisen at other Fiat plants. However, on 23 June 2006, a workforce referendum at the Mirafiori plant rejected the introduction of Saturday work. When interviewed by the national newspaper La Stampa, sociologist Luciano Gallino interpreted the negative outcome of the referendum as a gesture of ‘solidarity by workers with young people and laid-off workers on the wages integration fund’. The agreement signed at the Brescia plant therefore goes against this trend, although it is valid for only two months.

Apart from putting forward a counter-demand in terms of hiring new workers, a document issued by Fiom-Cgil expressed concern regarding the quality of production and the risks arising from the use of machinery by temporary agency workers used to replace skilled workers.

Commentary

A number of companies in northwestern Italy have complained that they cannot exploit the country’s recent economic recovery because they find it difficult to reach agreement with trade unions on ‘institutionalising’ the use of overtime; these companies thereby avoid the uncertainty of whether employees are willing to work overtime, and also the high cost of overtime work.

The trade unions have asked for any increase in manufacturing orders to be matched by the hiring of new workers, wage increases, and better working conditions for employees on production lines. There have been cases, such as that of Electrolux in Rorica and ACC (formerly Sole) in Comina, where negotiations have been inconclusive and the companies have continued to rely on workers willing to do overtime.

The Iveco case is therefore significant because agreement has been reached on a particularly controversial issue. Although the outcome may have been facilitated by the temporary duration of the agreement, and although ‘it is difficult to say whether it marks the beginning of a new phase’, as stated by Mr Santarelli of Federmeccanica, the results of such difficult negotiations should not be underestimated. Iveco has often attracted the attention of industrial relations scholars. For instance, Serafino Negrelli of the University of Brescia cited Iveco as evidence of the fact that total quality objectives can also be reached in ‘red fields’ – those sectors with strong trade unions. Iveco was, in fact, one of the first factories where the ‘integrated factory’ organisation was experimentally introduced in the 1990s.

Manuela Galetto, Ires Lombardia