The restructuring plan that Ing C Olivetti & Co, unions and government and agreed to last week, has received a lukewarm reception from officials in Lombardia, home to the Crema factory that Olivetti is keen to close. Olivetti plans to turn the factory into a centre for an agricultural information consortium, employing only 50 of the 650 employees. Another 300 are to be transferred to government positions, a further 150 into other Olivetti divisions and the remaining 100 made redundant. Feelings are heightened in the Lombardia region because the unions – the Confederazione Generale Italiano del Lavoro and Unione Italiane Lavoatori – have asked the regional government to guarantee the consortium. If the regional government agrees, it will have to finance around 2,000 jobs as well as underwriting the small companies that will make up the consortium. Meanwhile Carlo de Benedetti describes the restructuring plan signed last week as an important step, according to the business journal Il Sole 24 Ore. He claims to be cheered by the government’s decision to prioritise information technology, something he has been urging for some time. Olivetti’s president says that with the government’s commitment to spend some $450m between 1992 and 1994, it looks as if it wants to lay the foundations for the modernisation of Italy’s information technology infrastructure. He is keen to stress that the money is not earmarked for Olivetti, but for projects in which Olivetti will be able to participate, according to European Community rules on competition. As regards reductions in staff numbers, de Benedetti expects around 1,000 employees to take the early retirement package, with an additional 1,500 put into part-time work – and partial pay until the government employs them in the public sector. The majority of the public sector jobs will be in northern Italy, and although de Benedetti maintains that the south will play a significant role in the re-employment process, he claims everyone knows that the public administration in the south is weighed down by excesive personnel. The north, apparently, has the opposite problem and a number of positions have been left vacant after thousands of transfers to the south.
