Car production in Mirafiori will stop until September

At least until September at the Stellantis plant in Mirafiori, south of Turin, the production of new cars will stop. The unions announced that they had accepted Stellantis’ offer of “solidarity” contracts for the 1,174 Mirafiori employees working on the production of the electric Fiat 500, one of the few cars still produced at the plant. The solidarity contract is an agreement that establishes a reduction in both working hours and salary. The same contract had already been accepted for the 986 workers on the Maserati lines in Mirafiori: it will last from 23 April until 4 August, that is, until the plant closes for the summer holidays. Car production at Mirafiori had already been greatly reduced, and in fact with this latest decision it will stop until September, when the plant will reopen.

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«The signature is necessary to preserve the maximum possible number of jobs, guarantee a dignified transition path and for the best income protection. However, it is increasingly urgent for the government to intervene with an industrial policy ad hoc for the sector and that all the 500 models are allocated to Mirafiori as soon as possible”, commented the secretary of the FISMIC Turin union, Sara Rinaudo.

It is yet another sign of Stellantis’ desire to invest less and less in Italy, and in particular in Turin, the symbolic city of Fiat, where the company was born. Since the beginning of the year, Mirafiori’s 2,260 workers have been on layoffs and car production has halved compared to 2023. Until March 30, they worked on a single shift. Then at the end of March the automotive group had reached an agreement with the unions for the voluntary incentivized exit, i.e. for the dismissal in exchange for an economic incentive, of approximately 2,500 workers, including 300 Mirafiori workers.

In recent years, many employees have retired and have not been replaced with new hires, and dismissals are encouraged with generous financial contributions. Several productions have been moved abroad, while in other countries such as France new factories have been opened and employees hired.

In recent months, the Italian government has criticized Stellantis several times due to the company’s poor investments in Italy. The unions have urged opening up to a foreign manufacturer, a solution that would create more competition. In February, the Minister of Business and Made in Italy Adolfo Urso said that the arrival of a second manufacturer is a project the government has been working on for months. There had been talk of a negotiation with BYD, a Chinese company producing electric cars, but for now nothing has happened.

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