Stellantis (FIAT-Alfa) is leaving italy. An annunced Betrayal

As is easily predictable, the coup de grace for the auto industry in Italy has arrived. Stellantis has announced 2510 redundancies in its plants throughout Italy, thus making another major cut in the number of staff employed in our country. Specifically, in Turin, the holding company signed an agreement with metalworkers’ unions (Fiom excluded) for the voluntary incentive exit of 1,520 workers employed in 21 of the group’s companies in the territory, out of a pool of about 12,000 total employees. A cold shower came after reassurances in recent days when the holding company’s CEO, Carlos Tavares, stressed, “We love Italy and feel an ethical responsibility toward our employees whom I want to thank for all they are doing.”

“The comparisons held at the Mirafiori, Cassino, and Pratola Serra plants saw the company announce 2,510 redundancies. Turin 1,560, Cassino 850 (including 300 transferred to Pomigliano), and Pratola Serra 100 redundancies,” said Fiom, which is highly critical of the business line taken by the group led by Tavares.

The agreement reached today adds to those of the past few months, which came in the wake of a direction Stellantis had already taken some time ago, deciding to invest less in Italy and particularly in Turin. Incentivized voluntary departures, specifically, will affect 733 white-collar workers deemed to be too many at the Central Entities, 40 technicians and engineers at the Fiat Research Center, 22 workers at Mopar spare parts, 10 workers at the Balocco track, and 20 in security.

Then there will be 300 redundancies at the body work, 89 at the mechanics, and 40 at the presses, where the targets for incentive redundancies have already been reached with the previous agreement between unions and the company. The news has also created divisions within the unions themselves. According to Fiom, these redundancies “will also seriously weigh on companies in the component supply chain.” More cautious is Fim, which joined the agreement. “The numbers announced today are consistent with previous union agreements,” the union noted.

Stellantis pokes fun at Italians and its own workers “once again at the centrality of Italy within its global activities,” explaining—through its own spokesperson—that “the proof is the investments for several billion euros that have been made recently in Italian activities for new products and production sites, including the Gigafactory in Termoli and the Stla Medium and Stla Large platforms in Melfi and Cassino, respectively.” The global automotive industry, the company points out, “is changing rapidly, and Italy has a crucial role to play through this momentous transformation. The energy transition has led us to think in a different way than in the past if we wanted to continue to be competitive, and this has led us today to have to make the best use of capacity both in terms of assets and resources, minimizing the impacts related to the transformation and ensuring a solid future.”

The unions protest, but they can’t do anything about it because it’s too late. “Actual decisions contradict CEO Tavares’ entire story about Italy’s importance to Stellantis. The true reality is represented by a planned and dramatic disengagement of the multinational from our country,” Fiom attacked.

The unions are asking Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to summon the CEO of Stellantis. To do what? To pledge and donate billions that Stellantis’ blatantly ineffective mechanism will destroy and merely extend the suffering for a year or two? The betrayal of Stellantis, FCA, and FIAT is before the eyes of all Italian citizens, who have paid billions (7.6 to FIAT alone, excluding the Alfa Romeo gift and the one given then to FCA and only until 2012), who, frankly, would be authorized not to buy even a bicycle built by the Franco-American group anymore. Instead, it would be fair to incentivize any other brand, even Chinese or Indian, that wanted to come and produce in Italy on a permanent basis.