Company agreement signed at Ferrari Auto

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In February 2005 the sectoral trade union organisations affiliated to Cgil, Cisl and Uil and the Italian automobile company Ferrari Auto signed a company agreement. The main novelties of the agreement are a greater working time flexibility, the valorisation of part-time work and an handsome performance-related pay.

On 5 April 2005, after 15 months of talks, Ferrari Auto and 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 signed an important company agreement.

The Ferrari company is currently trying to expand into the international markets and needs to increase its productive capacity by intensifying the use of its plants and making more flexible the use of the workforce through an increase in the number of overall hours of activity on a weekly basis.

The agreement, signed at company level, intends to combine the increase in company’s productivity and profitability through an awarding system, a more intensive use of the plants’equipments and the introduction of a greater working flexibility.

In order to achieve these company’ objectives, the trade unions and the company have established a series of flexibility rules for the exploitation of the plants’ equipments as well as new shifts and working times without, however, increasing the weekly working time of the single workers. Thus, the agreement provides for the introduction of a supplementary shift on Saturday and an increase of EUR 20 for the Saturday-shift. The company agreement valorises part-time work and extends the possibility of making recourse to this form of employment trying to meet workers’ needs of combining family and professional life.

The agreement innovates also the organisation of holidays with the aim of combining individual needs and the growth of production volumes. Workers will be able to benefit from holidays, on a voluntary basis, also in a discontinuous manner during the course of the year.

As for the performance-related pay it will be possible to reach about EUR 14,020 for each employee in four years (2005-2008). This amount of money comprehends also the contractual vacancy resulting from the delay in the renewal of the 2003-2004 national sectoral agreement. The bonus will paid only if the company objectives are achieved on the basis of three parameters: volume of sales, profitability, efficiency.

The agreement strengthened also the participation tools which allow employees’ representatives to intervene in important aspects of the employment relationship and on the company choices. A Joint committee responsible for managing all job classification-related problems as well as work organisation problems will be set up. The company management declared also its availability in discussing with the trade unions employees’ job classification levels which, during the period of validity of the agreement, could determine at least 140 promotions.

Talks and participation about the company strategies will be also possible within the joint committee.

Both signatories expressed their satisfaction with the agreement signed.

The Ferrari Auto management expressed their satisfaction with the fact that 'workers keep believing in the company development and are willing to link part of their personal remuneration to the results to be achieved and of which they feel the responsibility'.

Positive comments were also voiced by the trade union organisation, as underlined by Claudio Mattiello of Fim-Cisl, according to whom among the main aspects of the agreement there are 'the valorisation of the Joint committee, which will mainly concern the multifunctional and multitask areas of work organisation, and will work for the identification of the new professional profiles and for obtaining a greater influence of workers in the company’s strategic choices'.

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