Tens of Thousands of Italian Autoworkers Join First Strike in 20 Years

Tens of thousands of Italian autoworkers protested in Rome on Friday in the first national strike in 20 years.

The three main unions in Italy’s automotive sector are demanding the government defend employment and relaunch the future of the country’s auto industry, starting with Stellantis.

Autoworkers held banners demanding better work conditions and waved the unions’ red flags as they marched through the capital’s streets on Friday.

“We are working one to two days a week when it goes well. So, what we are saying today is that the [ecological] transition cannot be exclusively paid for by the workers,” Riccardo Falcetta, representative of the UIL metalworker union in Bari, said.

Stellantis is the world’s fourth largest car manufacturer and the maker of Jeep and Chrysler vehicles. It was created in the 2021 merger of Fiat-Chrysler and PSA Peugeot.

The carmaker is under global pressure to clarify its future production plans as it faces increased competition and financial troubles. Late last month, Stellantis said in its profit warning that it expected to finish the year at a 5 to 10 billion euros loss.

Italy’s government has accused Stellantis of relocating car assembly plants to low-cost countries. In the first half of 2024, Stellantis had a steep decline in output at most of its Italian assembly plants.

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares recently blamed the European Union carbon emission rules for increasing production costs. He suggested that his company may be forced to close some plants to match competition from China and said he “could not rule out” cutting jobs.

Tavares went under fire by Stellantis’ U.S. dealer network in an open letter in early September.

The letter written by the U.S. Stellantis National Dealer Council to the CEO referenced Stellantis’s record profits in 2023 but said, “the reckless short-term decision-making to secure” the profits “has had devastating, yet entirely predictable, consequences in the U.S. market.”

These consequences, as listed in the letter, are “the rapid degradation” of Stellantis’ American brand, Stellantis’ troubling stock price and many other shortfalls.

“The market share of your brands has been slashed nearly in half, Stellantis stock price is tumbling, plants are closing, layoffs are rampant, and key executives fleeing the company. Investor lawsuits, supplier lawsuits, strikes–the fallout is mounting. Your own distribution network, your dealer body, has been left in an anemic and diminished state,” the letter read.

The company reacted to the letter in a statement: “At Stellantis, we don’t believe that public personal attacks, such as the one in the open letter from the NDC president against our CEO, are the most effective way to solve problems.”

“We have started a path that will prove successful. We will continue to work with our dealers to avoid any public disputes that will delay our ability to deliver results,” the statement read.

Stellantis also cited a 21 percent increase in sales from July to August.

Meanwhile, in 2023, the United Autoworkers Workers (UAW) reached a deal with Stellantis after the American union went on a six-week strike.

The deal “included a commitment to reopen and expand production in communities that were devastated by previous plant closures,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday. “What we want to see is Stellantis certainly deliver on those commitments to the UAW and to the communities.”

This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.