«The redundancy fund is a necessary solution of flexibility. It serves to cover the days of empty work in a differentiated way, to preserve economic sustainability but also takes into account the need to relaunch a future business “. Thus the general manager of Leonardo, Lucio Valerio Cioffi, and the director of Human Resources, Antonio Liotti, explain to the Sole 24 Ore the agreement reached in the early afternoon of January 18 in Rome with the metalworking unions which starts a period from January 17 layoffs in the four factories that make up the Aerostructures division.
The establishments concerned
All plants in the South: two in Campania, Pomigliano D’Arco and Nola, and as many in Puglia, Foggia and Grottaglie (Taranto). Requested for a maximum number of 3,900 employees, the cig will actually concern 2,200 people overall, the company details. The cash desk is the answer to the crisis that the pandemic has caused on civil aviation but it is above all the tool to manage the transience in view of a recovery that can already be seen. The ordinary cig is reached after a year and a half (full 2021 and second half of 2020) in which it has been completely avoided through alternative solutions: use of previous and current holidays, “demonetization” of midweek holidays, professional training, making available of working hours by Leonardo employees and the company, collective closures made to coincide with holidays and holidays.
The agreement
And we reach the agreement of January 18 after a series of meetings, the last of which between Monday 17 and Tuesday 18. The agreement, explains the Fim Cisl, also reduces the economic weight of the cig on the employees involved. These will receive 80 percent of their salary because holiday accruals, 13th month’s wages, leave and allowances linked to the night shift will be insured. says the dg Cioffi -. It was signed in a unified manner with the trade unions, it is shared with all the organizations, and has a common vision: the state of empty work is a conjunctural element linked to the protracted effects of the pandemic and the repercussions on passenger traffic. It is discounted this year but we are moving towards a relaunch plan, already defined by Leonardo, to enhance the skills of the Aerostructures sites ».
Declines in Boeing and Airbus weighed on the business
It comes from a very complicated period as an industry and it still is. «There was – says the chief executive Cioffi – the cancellation of orders for 75 per cent. In particular, Boeing and Airbus, our main customers, had a significant decline. Greater for Boeing with the 787 than for Airbus. A decline that has affected our business ». Leonardo’s response, Cioffi clarifies, was to focus «on three strands, innovation and industrial transformation, flexibility and diversification of the portfolio, rationalization of costs. These have been touched and impacted through strategic and industrial levers. First of all, investments – Cioffi argues -. Leonardo will invest more than 300 million in sites in the South with repercussions also on the related industries. The investments are on the digitization of production lines and business processes. Objective: to guarantee the competitiveness of current programs and acquire others with an advanced competitive base ». Investments have already started in 2019, confirmed with the pandemic and will be completed in 2025 even if there is a forecast to close them in 2023 precisely to accelerate its effects.
What is expected in the four southern plants
Cioffi continues “the automated Nemesi line for the ATR in Pomigliano D’Arco, as well as the automation of the Airbus A220 aircraft line in Foggia. Investments were then made in sustainability through smart factory projects for the Nola site, but also in the evolution of priority products to support the business such as the ATR, made in Toulouse together with Airbus. Here we invested in the cargo version and in take-off and landing with short runways. It was done for new markets and new routes ». Leonardo, continues the CEO Cioffi, has also focused on partnerships and customers, “our strategic and historical customers and those who can give us future opportunities”. Then there are “the products, the new European drone and the one and solar energy” whose work will concern Grottaglie in Tarantino. «The site currently most penalized is Grottaglie – notes Cioffi – because it builds only the fuselage sections of the 787. But beware: the relaunch of Grottaglie also lives on the solidity of the 787 which is a competitive program. We have already built and delivered 1,100 fuselages and another 1,600 we will deliver in the years to come ». Basically, the CEO summarizes, “a distinctive mission has been identified for the four sites on which the future opportunity can then be based”.