Leaders of Italy’s and Germany’ s major engineering unions will meet in Frankfurt on Wednesday to discuss the job implications of the proposed Fiat-Chrysler-Opel merger and the creation of a new global giant carmaker, Reuters reported.
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Italian union officials are particularly concerned and have attacked Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne’s plans; they claim the merger could result in Fiat closing the main Alfa Romeo plant in Pomigliano d’Arco near Naples and Termini Imerese in Sicily, where Lancia Ypsilons are built.
“The union is not prepared to discuss a reduction of employment in Italy,” Gianni Rinaldini, head of the FIOM unon, told reporters. The meeting has been aranged by Opel’s labour leader Klaus Franz who said the Italian unions “have the feeling that we are more informed than they are.”
Marchionne is looking to build the world’s second-largest carmaker with annual production volumes of over 6m vehicles by uniting financially ailing Opel and bankrupt US ally Chrysler with Fiat Group’s car business in a bid to slash costs through boosting scale.
The Fiat CEO has cast himself as an agent of change, a “catalyst” that can break up the encrusted structures of an industry long groaning under the weight of its own crushing overcapacity.
