After the October 2008 announcement by Whirlpool of its intention to shed 5,000 jobs worldwide, including 1,000 jobs in Europe alone, a series of meetings were held with trade unions. In Italy, 691 redundancies were envisaged, 431 of which would occur at Whirlpool’s two main Italian plants in the province of Varese in Lombardy. In mid December 2008, an agreement was signed by Whirlpool Italia and the trade unions on workforce cutbacks at the Varese plants.
Reasons for redundancies
In October 2008, the US-owned multinational Whirlpool, an industry leader in the manufacture of household appliances, announced its intention to shed 5,000 jobs worldwide by the end of 2009, with over 1,000 of these job cuts earmarked for its European plants. The Whirlpool management cited the worldwide decline in demand for household appliances and the increased cost of raw materials as the main reasons for the cutbacks.
In Europe, Whirlpool’s sales fell by 4% in 2008 compared with the previous year, with a consequent decrease in operating profits from USD 84 million (about €63.6 million as at 28 January 2009) in 2007 to USD 52 million (€39 million) in 2008.
This poor economic performance persuaded Whirlpool to adopt a workforce reduction strategy in Europe by cutting more than 1,000 jobs over 12 months, while also raising its product prices in order to offset its increased costs. Moreover, the company’s management stated that the reduction of its workforce would not involve the closure of any of its European production plants.
The workforce cutbacks by Whirlpool Europe would entail 400 redundancies in Poland, 150 in France and 691 Italy. Of the 691 dismissals in Italy, some 431 would be made in the province of Varese in Lombardy in the north of the country, where Whirlpool’s two main Italian plants are located – one in Cassinetta di Biandronno and one in Comerio (see also IT0505205F). The remaining 260 job losses would be distributed among the company’s plants in Trento in the province of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol in northern Italy, Siena in the Tuscany region of central Italy and Naples in the southern Campania region.
The redundancies would also involve an unspecified number of managers. No trade union negotiation was envisaged for the latter, but rather only individual bargaining.
Trade union reaction
On 29 October 2008, the trade union members of the Whirlpool European Works Council (EWC), together with the representatives of the European metalworkers’ trade unions, assembled in Naples for their scheduled annual meeting. The representatives asked the Whirlpool management ‘not to begin unilateral collective procedures for the redundancies announced, but rather to engage in talks (in the countries concerned) in order to find non-traumatic solutions for employment problems’.
Whirlpool responded positively to the request and accepted the approach proposed by the trade union representatives.
The General Secretary of the Italian Federation of White and Blue-collar Metalworkers (Federazione Impiegati Operai Metallurgici, Fiom-Cgil) at Varese, Maurizio Canepari, who is also the national coordinator of the unitary workplace union structures (RSUs) of Whirlpool in Italy, declared:
We shall now engage in further discussions plant by plant. Unlike in 2005, when the company began mobility procedures despite our proposal to discuss them, today it has agreed to examine the situation with the trade unions. We must try to reduce the number of possible dismissals by starting a phase of intense discussion.
Plan for Varese plants
On 15 December 2008, an agreement was reached between Whirlpool Europe and the Varese representatives of Fiom-Cgil, the Italian Federation of Metalworkers (Federazione Italiana Metalmeccanici, Fim-Cisl) and the Italian Metalworkers’ Union (Unione Italiana Lavoratori Metalmeccanici, Uilm-Uil) on redundancies at the Cassinetta di Biandronno and Comerio plants in Varese.
The first main point of the agreement related to the confirmation of the investments planned in the Varese area for 2008–2010 to the amount of €52 million. The continuation of strategic projects would involve both the launching of new products and changes to the production process.
Secondly, the agreement sets out confirmation, for 2008–2009, of 431 redundancies to be distributed as follows:
- 231 jobs would be shed through the non-renewal of temporary contracts – whether a fixed-term contract or temporary-employment agency work. For the workers concerned, however, their contracts would continue until their expiry date, and the company would formally undertake, in the event of recruitment over the next three years, to recruit from a pool of potential workers comprising those made redundant. Moreover, as regards workers on fixed-term contracts, Whirlpool would undertake to stabilise their jobs by hiring on permanent contracts those who have completed 36 months of work by July 2009;
- in 2009, the remaining 200 redundant workers would be placed on the ordinary wages guarantee fund (Cassa Integrazione Guadagni) from January to July 2009. Thereafter, during August 2009, employment surpluses would be assessed, and in September 2009 a mobility procedure – or availability list – would begin, with measures providing income support until retirement and incentives for voluntary redundancies.
Commentary
The events at Whirlpool demonstrate how solid industrial relations can intervene in situations of workforce cutbacks by actively involving the trade unions. In such instance, the parties discuss the restructuring strategy with its consequent acceptance, and agreement is reached between the company and the trade unions without conflict arising.
The positive outcome at Whirlpool was also made possible by the EWC, which coordinated the trade union representatives at the company’s various European plants. Moreover, since the beginning of the dispute, the EWC had asked the company, on behalf of all its workers in Europe, to discuss its restructuring plan with the plant-level trade unions.
Livio Muratore, Fondazione Regionale Pietro Seveso