Following three days of wildcat strikes and protests at Stellantis’ historic Mirafiori factory in Turin, Italy, last week, the multinational car company is pressing ahead with a campaign of job cuts. The company informed its employees that production of the Maserati Levante luxury SUV at the plant will end on March 31st.
Last week’s strike was prompted by Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares’ announcement that the company’s Mirafiori and Pomigliano d’Arco factories near Naples could be closed. The company has implemented “furlough layoffs” affecting 2,455 Mirafiori employees starting February 12th and ending on March 31st, which is likely to coincide with the end of Levante production.
Since 2016, the Mirafiori plant has been producing 25 Levante SUVs (starting price: USD 104,000) per day. The cancellation of this model means that Maserati will only be producing eight cars per day, limited to the Ghibli, Quattroporte, GranTurismo and GranCabrio models.
The company is also cutting production of its slow-selling Fiat 500 all-electric subcompact at its Mirafiori plant.
This would have a devastating impact on other auto parts and supplier companies, such as Turin’s Lear, which supplies seats to Maserati and is already subject to redundancy payments (Cassa Integrazione) at the end of 2023. Lear is on the verge of closure, with 420 jobs waiting.
Italian autoworkers, like their compatriots around the world, are targeted by the global restructuring of the auto industry. Job cuts and mass layoffs have accelerated in recent weeks, affecting thousands of jobs at U.S. Stellantis, Ford and GM plants. In both cases, it shows that the union bureaucracy is working together to carry out layoffs and respond to the needs of corporate interests.
For years, workers on the Maserati line at the Mirafiori factory have been subject to layoffs. Stellantis’ predecessor, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), provided redundancy benefits to 1,400 employees in 2020. “We work 10 days every two months…Many of my colleagues want to work even in August to make up for the reduced salary,” said Maserati auto worker Giacomo. Zurianello said in a 2020 interview.
Stellantis is implementing a bold restructuring and cost reduction policy as it transitions to electric vehicles (EVs). Like his peers at other global automakers, but perhaps most revealingly, Stellantis CEO Tavares flies from country to country, offering billions of dollars in incentives to national and local governments. They demanded money and threatened to destroy jobs if the money was not given.
In 2021, when he became CEO of the newly formed Stellantis after the merger of FCA and PSA, he targeted Italy’s higher production costs compared to other European countries such as France and Spain.
Now, Mr. Tavares is stepping up efforts to extort government incentives. To this end, he is using Stellantis’ excess production capacity as a bargaining chip and demanding large subsidies from the government. In the United States, Mr. Tavares was able to secure state and federal grants to keep the Jeep factory in Belvidere, Illinois, open. According to media reports, Italy is demanding subsidies of 1 billion euros for the production of 1 million EVs.
The response of the Italian government, headed by fascist Georgia Meloni, was reactionary and ultra-nationalist in nature. The company demands a stake in Stellantis equal to that of the French government, giving it more direct control over the company’s decisions and participation in its profits – the spoils generated from the exploitation of workers in Italy. is seeking to secure a larger portion of the
Stellantis is also investing more than 100 million euros in its Hungarian facility to expand its electric drive module production capacity, making it the company’s third facility (the other two are in the United States and France). This shift to expensive EVs is causing large-scale layoffs in related departments. In Germany, Bosch plans to cut 1,200 jobs, while ZF predicts up to 12,000 layoffs.
The situation escalated to the level of the European Union. European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager has taken a nominal no-contest position, saying: “There are no subsidies to enable European consumers to buy zero-emission cars.” Each member state has a different system and we cannot do anything unless it is discriminatory. ”
In the past two weeks, Tavares has signaled interest in a combination strategy, with rumors of a possible merger between Stellantis and Renault SA, which Stellantis officials have so far denied. Renault is also partly owned and controlled by the French state. The company is in crisis, particularly in relation to the company’s attempt to value Ampere, its EV business, at between 8 billion and 10 billion euros, as it seeks to establish itself as an independent company.
Tavares is exploiting the economic and political rifts between European governments to extract maximum concessions from capitalist countries and trade unions based across the country. Increasing conflicts between European countries are further proof that Europe cannot “unite” on the basis of capitalism, which is the EU’s raison d’être.
Workers will not find a solution within the anti-EU ultranationalism often provoked by the fascists behind Meloni and echoed by trade unions. The CGIL, CISL, and UIL trade union federations are calling for national protectionism and cooperation between the trade union organization, Stellantis, and the Italian government, or in other words, corporatist policies.
This bankrupt perspective only divides Italian workers from their fellow classes across the continent and subordinates them to the needs of their “own” capitalist class. And it always leads to further cuts in wages and benefits, and further layoffs in the name of “increasing the competitiveness” of Italian capitalism.
Eddie Lazzi, FIOM-CGIL secretary in Turin, expressed concern that tensions among trade union bureaucracies could escape their grip, saying: “The fact that workers go on a wildcat strike is a sign of the situation.” It means that we have reached our limit. We can’t waste any more time. We must act now.” That’s why he turned to the fascist Meloni government to quell the rising tide of discontent. I’m relying on it. “Central government and institutions must come up with ideas to meet this employment challenge.”
Other union leaders echoed similar sentiments. UILM secretary Luigi Paone named the Stellantis board as a potential ally and said recently: “With today’s announcement, Maserati production in Mirafiori will be effectively reduced to zero.” “There is an urgent need to discuss the mission of the power plant with Stellantis and other institutions,” he said.
Tommaso Pirozzi, a 30-year veteran worker at the Pomigliano d’Arco factory, which is also at risk of closure, spoke out about Tavares’ relationship with the government and trade unions in comments on social media. “In the era of Fiat, [CEO Gianni] Agnelli, they first threatened the government with claims for over 50,000 severance pay, and then [former CEO Sergio] Marchionne: Who can forget what took place in Pomigliano as a dry run for the catastrophic abolition of workers’ rights? ”
Focusing on the current situation, he continued. “After years of stealing money from the people, Mr. Tavares is now demanding even more money,” he said in a strongly critical tone. “This happened with the approval of trade unions and all political forces. How else can you explain the ongoing hollowing out of industry? It follows the logic of finance, making as much profit as possible, It puts the burden of danger and surplus stock on the workers.
Pirozzi criticized the FIOM union, which the establishment describes as the most “radical” union, saying: “They say FIOM is the only union that will say ‘no’ to Melloni and Tavares.” he added. That’s wrong. FIOM only pretends to be that way.In reality, they are asking the state to give them money. [to Stellantis]… They are [corporations] They are all coming to plunder the country and its people. ”
Tensions are rising among the ruling class. Vincenzo de Luca, a former Stalinist and current president of Campania, where the Pomigliano factory is located, is very concerned about the explosive effects of the closure of the Pomigliano factory. Campania has historically been an economically disadvantaged and maligned region.
De Luca has been pretending to oppose the government led by the fascist Meloni. He called for a mass demonstration in Rome on February 16th, with the aim of funneling more money to the south. But this regionalist approach effectively pits Pomigliano’s workers against their Mirafiori brothers and sisters, not to mention that workers in other countries affected by the same corporatist policies promoted by Mr. Tavares. The same goes for the people.
The fight to move forward cannot be left in the hands of union bureaucracies. In Detroit, the United Auto Workers (UAW) bureaucracy forced through the latest contracts with the Big Three automakers in December, triggering a wave of layoffs ever since. Last week in Germany, the IG Metall union reached an agreement with Ford to cut 3,500 jobs at its Saarlouis plant. In Italy, trade union leaders are appealing to the fascist government.
A precondition for the success of the struggle is the political independence of the workers from both the state and trade union bureaucracies in which they have an inseparable interest. To achieve this objective, workers in Italy and the United States, in conjunction with the International Workers’ Federation of Class Committees (IWA-RFC), a network of militant workers’ organizations, are working in France, Germany, and around the world. We must unite with all other workers.