Following the US domestic appliance manufacturer’s purchase of its Italian competitor Indesit, the signatories agreed to apply article 13 of the European Directive 2009, which intends for complete and total renegotiation when there is a significant change in the structure of the company. Consequently the new agreement stemming from this Directive now replaces the two anticipation agreements that up until then had regulated both companies. Negotiators for the workers sought to maintain Indesit’s policy of allowing workers from certain non-EU countries be represented. On 18 March the agreement was signed by the SNB and it allows for seats for workers representatives from Russia, Turkey, and South Africa as well as its geographical scope covering workers throughout the EMEA region.
The agreement comes into force on 01 July 2016, by which time both entities will have been able to completely integrate following the merger. “For us it was essential that certain points from the Indesit agreement be maintained,” explained Indesit’s EWC IndustriAll Europe’s union coordinator, Gianni Alioti, to Planet Labor. The Indesit agreement integrated representatives from Turkey and Russia with the same rights as the EU workers’ representatives. From time to time Whirlpool had also invited
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