Fiat on Thursday completed its purchase of the Bertone site near its head office but unionised workers there remain apprehensive about the Italian group’s plans for them.
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Chrysler and Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne plans to spend EUR150m (US$218.3m) on the plant over the next three years to transform it into a niche producer of vehicles. Chrysler products made in Turin will be shipped throughout Europe and imported into North America, according to a Dow Jones report.
Chrysler will end its contract assembly deal with Magna International which is the sole manufacturer of Chrysler models on the European continent and assembles the Chrysler 300C sedan and Jeep Grand Cherokee. Export minivan production done previoulsy at the Magna Steyr plant in Austria was transferred to North America at the last model redesign. The 300C and Jeep work would be moved to Bertone.
Chrysler’s long-term survival rests with what Marchionne will do to expand the auto maker’s international sales, the report noted. The company relies on the North America market for about 90% of its sales but that market has been rocked over the past year by an economic recession.
Bertone’s site, with four buildings and 1,140 workers, once could produce 70,000 vehicles a year but ran into financial problems after the death of owner Giuseppe Bertone in 1997 and was eventually idled from September 2006 after major carmakers brought in-house production of limited series of their models such as convertibles.
The last model off the Bertone line was a BMW Cooper for which Bertone did the paintwork. The Bertone plant went into special administration two years later.
To draw attention to the plant’s problems, a small group of workers lived in a camper van parked outside the factory for more than a year in 2007.
Bertone’s widow, Lilli, stopped by the camper once and handed the workers a tray of home-made cookies.
Last August, Fiat bought the site at auction, keeping Bertone from liquidating.
“We achieved an important result. Bertone didn’t go bankrupt, even though it was a close call for some time. But I am waiting for Fiat to tell us what will happen now, so I am still worried,” Rocco Vallone, who joined his father and uncle at Bertone in 1977, when he was 18, told Dow Jones.
Lino La Mendola, a representative of the union, Fiom, said it was essential that the workers keep their acquired rights in terms of salary and ranking.
Now they wait to hear what Marchionne intends to do.
