Italian Truckers’ Strikes Disrupt Production at Fiat, Coke
January 27, 2012, 2:34 AM ESTBy Tommaso Ebhardt and Alessandra Migliaccio
(Adds new Fiat statement on production halt in the third paragraph. For more on the European debt crisis, see {EXT4 <GO>}.)
Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The fourth day of strikes by truckers continue to disrupt transport across Italy, forcing Fiat SpA to stop production and Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Co. SA. to halt two plants, as protests mount against the government’s austerity measures.
Truck drivers demonstrating against high fuel prices, with the backing of farmers, livestock owners and fishermen, are maintaining road blocks in parts of the country. Drivers crippled nationwide commerce on the first day of the protests on Jan. 23 when they blocked toll booths across the country’s highway network.
Fiat said it won’t be able to restart output before 2 p.m. tomorrow because of a shortage of parts. The maker of the Punto and Panda models has lost production of 8,400 vehicles since the start of the strike. Coca-Cola said in a statement it halted two facilities because it wasn’t receiving supplies and was having trouble distributing its products.
Food shortages are driving up prices in parts of the country, and the protests have cost farmers about 100 million euros ($131 million) by preventing delivery of produce, trade association Coldiretti said.
Drivers are suffering from higher levies on fuel included in a 20 billion-euro austerity package passed by Prime Minister Mario Monti’s government last month that left Italy with the region’s highest gasoline prices, currently about $9 a gallon. A second plan passed last week aims to open up closed professions, and has prompted protests from taxi drivers, pharmacists, lawyers and notaries.
Taming Debt
Monti has said the measures are needed to help reduce the nation’s 1.9 trillion euro debt and spur economic growth so Italy can better withstand the fallout from the region’s sovereign crisis that led Greece, Portugal and Ireland to seek bailouts.
The prime minister’s agenda is “overly ambitious” and will probably face “significant resistance,” said Nicholas Spiro, managing director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy in London. “Italy is being forced to retrench aggressively in the teeth of what is expected to be the most severe recession among the world’s advanced economies this year.”
The International Monetary Fund forecast on Jan. 24 that Europe’s fourth-biggest economy would shrink 2.2 percent this year, compared with a 0.5 percent contraction for the euro region.
New Measures
Monti has not given any indication he will back down and the Cabinet is scheduled to vote on additional measures aimed at cutting red tape tomorrow.
Prices of some vegetables have risen about 15 percent since the start of the strikes as supplies in cities and towns dwindled, according to farmers’ association Confagricoltura. Transport workers, from bus drivers to rail and airport personnel will be striking tomorrow, making it even harder for commerce to function.
The situation is particularly serious in the southern region of Calabria where some farmers are forced to milk cows and then dump the milk because they can’t get past the road blocks, Confagricoltura said.
The protests started last week in Sicily where shortages have been even worse, and spread to the mainland and to the island of Sardinia this week. Protesting farmers, livestock owners and fishermen, calling themselves the “Pitchfork Movement,” are angered by the lack of investments in their industry.
“We are tired by the disinterest and even abuse we suffer at the hands of state institutions,” the movement said on its Facebook page, which has over 56,000 “likes” and shows pictures of protesters wielding wooden pitchforks blocking highways with large trucks and farming vehicles.
--Editors: Andrew Davis, Craig Stirling, Dan Liefgreen
Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net
To contact the reporters on this story: Tommaso Ebhardt in Milan at tebhardt@bloomberg.net Alessandra Migliaccio in Rome at amigliaccio@bloomberg.net
