Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) reached a deal with unions on Thursday over measures to adopt in its Italian plants once the government eases restrictions on business activity enforced in order to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Italy, the epicentre of the virus emergency in Europe, enforced a nationwide lockdown on March 9. After two weeks non-essential businesses including car, clothing and furniture manufacturing were ordered to shut down.
That forced FCA to close its Italian plants even though it had already introduced important security measures to protect employees.
“The main points of the accord deal both with a preparatory phase and a restarting one, which will be gradual and will not involve all of the automaker’s production sites straight away,” a statement by the FIM union noted.
The agreed measures consists of sanitizing premises, taking workers’ temperatures, offering safety devices such as face masks and hand gel, rearranging assembly layouts, marking floors to make sure one-metre between employees and staggering shifts.
The head of the UILM union Gianluca Ficco stated that production at light commercial vehicle maker Sevel, production lines for Jeep’s Compass in Melfi, located in southern Italy and the new electric 500 in Turin’s Mirafiori, together with some processes in mechanics plants, would be one of the first to resume once Rome gives the green light.
With plants closed and demand for cars almost non-existent, automakers are burning cash and pushing to reintroduce operations soon, starting with the most profitable and attractive models.
“The health and security of employees are the main priorities for FCA… The functioning of our industrial system is fundamental for our group, but we do not admit any derogation to people’s security,” FCA stated.
The unions also agreed to adopt a rotating furlough system to decrease the financial impact on the pay of employees, FIM said.
A third union, FIOM, stated that the agreement would be valid until the end of July and that all of the factories would need to find “the best solution to protect workers”.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte suggested on Thursday that some restrictions could be progressively lifted, given the spread of the disease continued to slow, but an extension of a national lockdown set to expire on April 13 cannot be ruled out.
About 152,271 people in Italy have been confirmed as being infected with the coronavirus. The virus has killed 19,468 people in the country.
