WORKERS at Ferrari will today down tools in protest at a controversial restructuring of Fiat, the luxury carmaker’s owner, which could cost up to 8,000 jobs.

The rare strike action at Ferrari comes after a mounting wave of protests by trade unions since Fiat announced swingeing job cuts as part of a plan to recoup €1 billion (£640 million) of debts by the end of next year. From today 5,600 workers across the company’s Italian plants will be laid off for several months and another 2,000 will face the same fate at the end of the year.

Union leaders have threatened to call a general strike next month and are furious that the Government of Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, has failed to bail out Fiat’s long-troubled car division, Fiat Auto. In what is threatening to be a winter of discontent in Italy, unions issued strike notices after rejecting late proposals by the Government and Fiat to limit job cuts.

The Government said it had reached an accord with Fiat that would help the company to reduce job losses at the Termini Imerese plant near Palermo, one of the focal points of protest, by delaying the “temporary suspensions” through the use of state funds to pay “reduced salaries” for a limited time.

However, the Prime Minister caused a furore by suggesting that “those who are most keen can always find a second job, perhaps an unofficial one, to earn extra money for their families”. Last week Signor Berlusconi also raised eyebrows by blaming the Fiat management for the crisis, saying that it should find a solution based on “private enterprise” rather than “state handouts”.

He added: “If I were free to do so, I would offer to take charge of Fiat myself.”

Fiat said that the remarks were “out of place and incomprehensible”.

General Motors, which already has a 20 per cent stake in Fiat Auto, has yet to decide whether to exercise an option to buy the whole of it in 2004, a move that Italy would regard as a devastating blow to its national prestige.

There were also demonstrations at the weekend at the Fiat-owned Alfa Romeo plant at Arese, on the outskirts of Milan, where 1,000 workers are to lose their jobs today.

Observers have blamed the Fiat crisis on overall problems in the car market, but Fiat is said to have compounded its troubles by marketing “unsellable” models, such as the Punto and the Stilo, which Italians have shunned in favour of foreign brands

(acknowledgement: The Times Newspaper, 9.12.02)

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