Leonardo, what happens in the Grottaglie plant
Confirmed the development of the Eurodrone project in Grottaglie, will it be enough for the recovery of the Leonardo site?
Diversify production at Leonardo's Grottaglie site.
This was Fiom CGIL's wish for the Grottaglie industrial site, which belongs to Leonardo's Aerostructures division and builds two sections of the carbon fiber fuselage for the Boeing 787.
After the hearing in the Chamber of the CEO of Leonardo, Alessandro Profumo, on July 15 Fiom Cgil wrote a letter to the parliamentarians and local administrators of the Taranto area posing the problem.
The pandemic crisis and the lower demand from the client Boeing have so far been managed in Grottaglie without resorting to the cig, but through a collective closure plan. This has taken place since August 2020 and does not require work – on a scheduled basis – on Fridays and Mondays.
And also this year Grottaglie, which involves about 1300 direct employees, will stay out for 6 months, 2 of which between July and August.
In the meantime, on 22 July Leonardo and the trade unions signed an agreement that allows the use of the pre-retirement tool in the Aerostructures Division. Involved up to 500 employees who meet the requirements for retirement.
On the same occasion, the company also confirmed the choice to involve the Grottaglie plant in the Eurodrone program.
All the details on the Grottaglie plant, awaiting the next confrontation between Leonardo and the unions on 22 September.
THE SITUATION OF THE AEROSTRUCTURE DIVISION
Leonardo's CEO could not help but acknowledge the problems for the group's Aerostructures division during the hearing in the Chamber on 7 July .
“We have a problem area, aerostructures, which produces fuselages for Boeing, Airbus and Atr. Today we fly much less and fewer aircraft are produced, ”admitted Profumo. “We have contractual obligations, an obligation to maintain a production capacity especially in Grottaglie. In 2019 it produced 14 fuselages per month for the 787, this year the demand is 4.2 per month. Keeping the production capacity at 14 the impact is quite significant ”. The turnover of the aerostructures this year “will be 45% compared to 2019. Today the aerostructures division absorbs cash for about 350-million a year”.
In the face of the unloading of work concerning the aerostructures division, Leonardo and the unions have entered into an agreement which excludes layoffs to resort, instead, to alternative solutions. Among these: use of holidays; hours made available by workers (even those who do not belong to aerostructures) and the company; professional training with the “new skills” fund and midweek holidays no longer monetised.
THE LOSS OF WORK
"The drop in work affects the entire division, but it is marked for Grottaglie and followed by Pomigliano" explained at the beginning of the month to Agi Davide Sperti, of Uilm.
From 9 July the Taranto plant began to stop due to the collective closure plan, already implemented in recent months. Plan that will culminate in August and then resume work in September.
LEONARDO'S PRODUCTION PLAN IN GROTTAGLIE
"The fact that photographs the crisis is that now – continues Sperti – we are doing only 2 shifts a day, morning and afternoon, and that the plant is running at a rate of 10 weekly shifts compared to 15 that were done some time ago".
On the production level, he adds to Sperti, " Grottaglie's activity involves the construction of four pairs of fuselage per month for the Boeing 787. We were once at 14 pairs per month, then we went to 12, we should have gone down , in the face of a lower demand from the Boeing client at 10 pairs per month, on the one hand the pandemic caused long periods of inactivity and on the other hand led us to produce only 4 pairs of fuselage per month ”.
THE INTERVENTION OF THE FORMER FINMECCANICA
As explained by Michele Zanocco, national secretary of Fim Cisl, following the meeting with the Aerostructures division of Leonardo: "To reduce the weight of the empty work, the company has communicated the decision to use the" early retirement "by using of the Fornero Law, with a slide up to 7 years and to encourage the exit using "Quota 100" for workers who meet the requirements by December 2021. These two actions would lead to a reduction in the workforce of about 500 unit.
TO REDUCE EMPTY WORKING DAYS
"The effectiveness of these tools – continues the note from Fim Cisl – which will be operational as early as 2021, would make it possible to reduce the days of empty work to 106 days for Grottaglie, between 47 and 99 days for Pomigliano depending on the areas, 22 days for Foggia and 47 days for Nola in part of the Manufacturing area ".
"To cope with the remaining vacant work, the company has communicated its intention to use a series of tools: holidays and permits accrued in the year 2022 for 34 days, the implementation of further intra-group transfers and the use of the redundancy fund Ordinary earnings ”the union specified.
THE START-UP PHASE OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EURODRONE IS STARTED
Finally, the company led by Alessandro Profumo confirmed for the Grottaglie plant the development of composite materials for use in extreme conditions in collaboration with Solvay and the start-up phase of the Eurodrone development for which Leonardo will intervene for engineering and wing block production.
On 2 December, during the meeting with the company , the Eurodrone project was in fact among the possible orders that would affect the Taranto site.
Meanwhile, the EU Commission has funded the Eurodrone program developed by Germany, Spain, France and Italy. Last week in Rome, the Occar awarded the development contract together with Airbus Defense & Space (lead company representing Germany and Spain). The main industrial partners of Eurodrone were also present: Leonardo for Italy and Dassault Aviation for France.
AS WISHED BY THE TRADE UNIONS
Leonardo is therefore proceeding towards a diversification of production, just as desired by the trade unions.
"In Grottaglie – reads the letter signed Fiom – production must be diversified, military and civil aerostructures must be produced and other commercial partners must be introduced, otherwise the words of the CEO will find fertile ground in a single-client and monoprogram plant".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/leonardo-cosa-succede-nello-stabilimento-di-grottaglie/ on Sun, 25 Jul 2021 13:20:55 +0000.