vr jan 23, 2009 16:33
Ondertussen in Italia:
We are closed! We have no authorisation to speak to you!” An anonymous, metallic voice echoing through the security gate intercom bars a Financial Times reporter from visiting FIAT’s Pomigliano car factory, the largest industrial plant in southern Italy. “Come back after March 15,” the disembodied voice of management requested. As the whistle blew for the end of the 2pm shift, a trickle of maintenance and office workers emerged from the gates where six months ago there would have been a flood. Production lines at Pomigliano, which used to make 600 cars a day, have functioned for barely four weeks since last August when most of its 5,300 workers were sent home on 60 per cent pay. Workers angrily recall how management communicated the news: a note on the gate when they arrived to clock in. While Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right government plays down the depth of the crisis, thousands of Fiat workers and their families, plus another 10,000 workers laid off in related industries around Naples, are feeling deep pain and anger. In Naples’ Square of the Martyrs, union leaders and workers held a protest rally yesterday in a desperate attempt to make their voices heard while Fiat’s board met in faraway Turin to discuss taking a stake in Chrysler of the US. There is a lot of talk, but also confusion, over the accord between Fiat and Chrysler. The fear is that Fiat will start production in the US of its smaller, more successful models, like the Fiat 500, while Pomigliano, which produces the nine-year-old Alfa 147 and the uncelebrated Alfa 159, will close down. Massimo Brancarto, leader in Naples of the Fiom metal workers’ union, recalls how on December 4 2007, Sergio Marchionne, Fiat’s chief executive, gathered union leaders together to lay out his 120 million euro restructuring plan for Pomigliano. Productivity, he said, was the lowest in the group. “We were the youngest plant but with the oldest production lines,” said Mr Brancarto. Modernisation and retraining arrived. Fiat declared the plant fit. But instead of an industrial plan and new models, Pomigliano got redundancies.
Alfa 155 Q4 WB 1995
Alfa GT jtd 2004 Quaife Q2
ex: Alfa 33 1.7 ie 1991 WTCC Q2 - 484.500 km
Originally Posted by Jeremy Clarkson
A turbo: exhaust gasses go into the turbocharger and spin it, witchcraft happens and you go faster.