A visit to the “construction site” that will give life to the future assembly line of the electric 500, but also an opportunity to take stock of the social safety nets inside the Mirafiori plant, with the prospect that the solidarity contracts can be extended to September 2020. The meeting that took place today between the management of the FCA and the Fiom Cgil trade unionists, along with the plant’s services, has moved within these boundaries.
On the table, next to the new production prospects that will have to mark the company’s future industrial plan, also the request by the company for a further extension of the solidarity contracts that will expire at the end of the year. The extension request continues as said until September 2020, the month in which the renewal of the five-year period of social safety nets will start again, as required by current legislation. The meeting at the Ministry of Labor is scheduled for Monday 2 December.
Meanwhile, at the construction site for the assembly line of the electric 500, while the first “process verification” cars are being assembled, today there are 150 people dedicated to the new car. In the spring we should move to a second phase with the cars pre-series, to arrive during the summer to the actual production. “On the numbers of people who will be employed at full capacity and on the number of cars that will be produced, the company management has not given precise indications”, say Edi Lazzi, provincial secretary of Fiom Cgil and Ugo Bolognesi, head of Mirafiori for the metalworkers CGIL. “Finally the activities for the start of production of the electric 500 are underway – adds Lazzi -. The line, where the Alfa Romeo Mito was assembled, has been updated and modified. Production should start in the summer of 2020. at the moment, the actual impact on employment will be uncertain, while the continuation of the use of social safety nets will also remain certain in 2020, when it will formally enter the thirteenth consecutive year of use “.
“We continue to remain of the idea – says Bolognesi – that the industrial plan presented for the Turin plants will not be sufficient to guarantee the full employment of the current employees and saturate the plants in our territory. We need new investments and new products to revive the historic factories of Mirafiori and Grugliasco with all their components induced.We highlight that production levels have never been so low and that 2019 will record the historical record of negative volumes, recording a percentage change of even less than 91% compared to 2006. A crisis table is urgently needed with the presence of the Government and local institutions as well as property, in the figure of John Elkann: we need to be clear about the real intentions and productive commitment in Turin and in Italy, especially in light of the recent alliance between FCA and PSA where model allocations and industrial plans are available they will probably be revised and retouched for a clear excess of production capacity of the various existing factories of the two groups, which is much higher than the cars produced in recent years. We would not want to pay the consequences of both Turin and Italy in general “.