“Finmeccanica seeks to make reductions”. The workers down their tools

“The strike has had mass support, from both the manual and the office employees.” The joint trade union representative at AgustaWestland is satisfied. The employees gathered for two hours outside the gates of the factory in Vergiate, and protested against the possible renewal of the contract presented by the CEO Mauro Moretti. “They want to take away our rights,” the joint trade union representative said, “rights that we’ve acquired over years of negotiation.”

At stake, there are some established items in the pay slip, including the productivity bonus, the important variable part of the salary that accounts for 20% of the whole sum. “The problem is that the performance bonus in this factory offsets a salary that is lower than other Finmeccanica factories, which have a different contract. With this draft agreement, Moretti wants to radically change the rates, by changing the fixed part of the payment,” the trade unionists explained.

Nino Cartosio, of FIOM CGIL, and Francesco Nicolia, of UILM, were present at the AgustaWestland factory, in Vergiate. “It’s unacceptable,” the two trade unionists said. “Instead of acting sooner, on the basis of a shared business plan, they’re acting later. The proposal of the Finmeccanica CEO aims at reductions; it makes it more difficult to obtain the performance bonus, it cancels some established items in the payslip, changing them into a personalised allowance over minimum pay, it establishes schedules with compensation without any extra. In fact, there’s a levelling of all the professional skills that a factory like this has, which the company bargaining over the last few years acknowledged. It isn’t an assumption of ours, because there are three documents in circulation which show the course undertaken by Moretti.”