Benetton on strike, hasn't happened for over 30 years

The climate of collaborative understanding that had characterised the dialogue between the company and trade unions in the Benetton Group for many months broke down and, for the first time in more than 30 years, there was a two-hour strike that, in the first morning shift, was attended by about 350 workers. These are employees of the various departments concentrated since the beginning of the year in the plant of Castrette di Villorba, in the province of Treviso, a few kilometres from the headquarters in Ponzano Veneto, to which other employees working in the afternoon and evening shifts will be added.

According to the union's projections, therefore, at the end of the day, 70% of a total of about 700 workers could have joined the protest, which took the form of a sit-in this morning in the plant forecourt, then moved outside to the 'Postumia' provincial road to meet the press, and which was based on the unexpected application of 90% solidarity contracts for 80 workers. Basically, these are employees who will only have to work one day in ten and who were informed of the decision directly by the company by e-mail, with practically immediate effect.

The absence of a confrontation, more than the heaviness of the measure, is the element that provoked the organisation of the protest with the request to the managing director, Claudio Sforza, to meet the trade union representatives as soon as possible. This is both to know the industrial plan, until now considered not sufficiently detailed, and, above all, to convert the social shock absorber thus imposed into a measure that spreads the necessary sacrifice over the entire workforce.

The general secretaries of Filctem CGIL, Femca Cisl, and Uiltec Uil, Massimo Messina, Rudy Roffarè, and Francesca Mazzoli, explained that they were not against the use of the special social shock absorber per se - which was in force until 31 December according to a scheme approved at the beginning of the year - but that they found it unacceptable that the new measure had been introduced without prior consultation between the parties.

Without a rotation criterion among all, they emphasised, it is then 'a choice that seems oriented above all to divide the workers' front'. In the past months, also thanks to exit incentives and instruments to accompany retirement, about 400 people had already left the workforce, but now, the workers' representatives also report, the mechanism of voluntary redundancies has also been suspended.