There are again talks about Electolux’s Italian operation in Italy ith new reports of factory worker’s salaries being reduced in order to make the plant viable.
As we reported recently here on the closure of one of the Bosch plants in Spain, there is groing unease within the EU about manufacturing jobs leaving the bloc and EU politicians are starting to get a bit upset with these moves.
There has been talk of “things” to be done to keep the Italian plant open without state aid but details on this are unclear at this time.
“I personally will make an effort to make it so that all Electrolux production remains in Italy and we will do it without State aid,” said Flavio Zanonato, the Italian Industry Minister who has apparently summoned Electrolux to talks with the Italian government on the future of operations.
Electrolux has said that it was suggesting cutting wages in Italy by €3 an hour, which it said was an 8% cut and would amount to a reduction of less than €130 a month in workers’ net salaries. Though we doubt that the Italian ork force will be terribly happy about that.
Electrolux also said it had also proposed freezing salary increases for three years in order to “cool the inflation of labour costs, which is responsible for the continuing growth in the competitive gap with the countries of Eastern Europe”. And that it was willing to consider “other forms of reducing labour costs with lower or, if possible, no consequences on salaries”.
All in all, this doesn’t sound too good for the Italian plant and yet another reminder about the hgh cost of European production, which is part of the reason we make virtually not appliances any longer here in the UK.
