Confindustria under Montezemolo

Abstract

The change in the presidency of Confindustria, which took place at the end of April 2004, marked a break with the past in both the political sphere and that of industrial relations in Italy. The new president was Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, managing director of Italian industry’s world famous company, Ferrari, who took great care, from the very outset of his candidature for the presidency, to emphasize just how different he was from his predecessor, Antonio D’Amato. Indeed, by proposing changes in the circumstances under which workers could be dismissed, D’Amato had led Confindustria down the road of bitter confrontation with the trade-union movement, as well as toward collaboration, almost as a matter of principle, with the center-right government. Paradoxically, the result had been to allow Sergio Cofferati, the secretary general of the Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (General Confederation of Italian Workers, CGIL), to gain enormous popularity on the left—while Confindustria itself obtained paltry and uncertain results from D’Amato’s neo-liberal policies.