Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s rescue plan for Alitalia was on the brink of collapse on Friday night after the consortium he put together to save the airline’s “Italian-ness” walked out of talks with unions.
Alitalia would be the first European flag-carrier to go bust since Sabena of Belgium and Swissair in 2001, and is in the hands of a bankruptcy commissioner who was due to begin liquidation proceedings on Friday.
In a desperate attempt to save the company — and to save face — the government gave the unions one more day in which to come up with their own proposal. Thousands of jobs were riding on the response.
PHOTO: EPA
On Friday night, more than 100 cabin crew staged a protest in the international check-in area at Fiumicino Airport.
The demonstrators chanted “dignity and respect” and appealed to colleagues not to board flights.
In a statement, the transport and employment ministers in Berlusconi’s right-wing government promised to avert “irreversible acts” by either the bankruptcy commissioner or the all-Italian consortium.
Employment Minister Maurizio Sacconi said, however, that “the scope for mediation has, I believe, been exhausted.”
Emma Marcegaglia, the head of Confindustria, Italy’s employers’ federation, said she had expected tough negotiations, but “it was hoped that a deadlock could be avoided.”
She was speaking after seven days of contacts between the unions and Alitalia’s would-be investors had culminated in an entire night of fruitless discussion.
A spokesman for the consortium, formed to take over the profitable parts of Alitalia, said the unions did not “appreciate the grave situation of Alitalia or the need for profound discontinuity with the past.”
The unions protested at what they claimed was a “take-it-or-leave-it” approach by putative investors.
The representative of the UIL, the most moderate of Italy’s three big trade union federations, said “we have an increasingly strong suspicion that [the consortium] wants Alitalia to collapse so as to grab it afterwards.”
Protests by the unions were strikingly reminiscent of those that drove away a bid from Air France-KLM in April. On that occasion the unions had an assurance from Berlusconi, who had just been re-elected, that a group of Italian investors was ready to buy the airline.
Though it took several months for a consortium to emerge, 19 companies and individuals expressed a readiness last month to invest in a relaunched Alitalia.
Under a plan drawn up by Intesa Sanpaolo bank, the existing firm’s vast debts would be dumped on the taxpayer.
The profitable bits of Alitalia would be hived off into a new airline that would also incorporate its main domestic competitor, Air One.
At a later stage, it was intended a foreign partner would take a stake of 20 percent to 25 percent.
The investors made it clear from the outset they envisaged a much smaller and cost-effective airline, stripped of many of its intercontinental routes. They made it clear they would only go ahead if the unions signed their business plan. That meant about 5,000 job losses and, according to the union side, pay cuts of up to 40 percent.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), yesterday said it has signed an agreement with Innolux Corp (群創) to acquire the flat-panel display maker’s plant in Tainan for NT$17.14 billion (US$530.6 million) amid supply constraints of its advanced packaging capacity constraints. TSMC plans to use the plant, including buildings and manufacturing facilities, for future operations, the world’s biggest foundry service provider said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The chipmaker did not elaborate on whether it would convert the plant into a new panel-level packaging factory, or expand its advanced packaging chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) capacity. The chipmaker "is working whatever it
The world’s biggest steel producer sounded the alarm about a crisis in China that carries the potential to send global shock waves, warning of a deeper industry downturn than major events in 2008 and 2015. Conditions in China are like a “harsh winter” that would be “longer, colder and more difficult to endure than we expected,” China Baowu Steel Group Corp (寶武鋼鐵集團) chairman Hu Wangming (胡望明) told staff at the company’s half-year meeting. For commodities including steel, the warning from Baowu underscores risks to demand and prices, as well as what ArcelorMittal SA, the No. 2 firm in the industry, called an
As monsoon rains were about to break over Pakistan, 14-year-old Shamila and her 13-year-old sister Amina were married off in exchange for money, a decision their parents made to help the family survive the threat of floods. “I was happy to hear I was getting married... I thought my life would become easier,” Shamila said after her wedding to a man twice her age in hope of a more prosperous life. “But I have nothing more, and with the rain, I fear I will have even less, if that is possible.” Pakistan’s high rate of marriages for underage girls had been inching
PRIVACY: Pixels with AI capabilities raise questions about how personal data are being protected, but Google said no sensitive information is sent off the devices Tech giant Google on Tuesday unveiled its new Pixel 9 smartphone series, which includes artificial intelligence (AI) technology, announcing that they would hit Taiwan shelves on Thursday next week. The Pixel 9 series could help consumers better envision the potential of artificial intelligence, analysts said. The phones are also expected to boost Google’s competitiveness against Apple Inc, which has teamed up with OpenAI to develop AI applications for iPhones, they said. The Pixel weaves users more tightly into Google’s online services, taking a page from Apple’s strategy with the iPhone and App Store. The Pixel 9 models use Google’s Gemini AI capabilities, offering