23 Florim executives create a solidarity fund for temporarily laid-off colleagues

In a unique gesture of solidarity between work colleagues, all 23 Florim executives have decided to transfer for 12 months, from February through to December 2009 (including the thirteenth-month pay), 10% of their salary to a solidarity fund for colleagues temporarily laid-off under the Cassa Integrazione (Wages Guarantee Fund) scheme.
The initiative was announced at a press conference on 19 March given by Florim’s chairman Claudio Lucchese and two of the 23 executives representing the management: Giovanni Grossi, financial director, and Fabio Locatelli from the sales department.

“When the company announced that it had to lay off workers temporarily and resort to the Wages Guarantee Fund,” explained Grossi, “we executives asked ourselves what we could do to help our colleagues, particularly in view of the gesture made by Board Members in November of reducing their honoraria by 20%.”

Claudio Lucchese stressed that the initiative is entirely the merit of the 23 executives rather than the company’s owners. However, Florim’s Chairman and Board of Directors not only welcomed the executives’ idea and offered the technical and bureaucratic support of the personnel and administrative departments for setting up the fund, but also undertook to supplement the fund with further resources. Along with the approximately 350,000 euro allocated by the executives during the year, the Florim Board of Directors will provide an additional sum to reach a total figure of around 500,000 euro.
This is an important gesture in these difficult times for the ceramic industry, particularly in view of the fact that all the resources will go to helping temporarily laid-off workers, unlike other cases in which the cut in salary has been used solely to cut company costs.
It is estimated that the supplementary sum that can be assigned to laid-off employees through this fund will be around 150-200 euro a month, although this depends a great deal on the number of hours of work lost during the year. For the time being, contributions will be paid to 550 workers for the 5 weeks of April, while other amounts will be paid in July and August and then at the end of the year, “although by then the economy and market will hopefully have begun to show signs of recovery”, adds Grossi.

The Florim executives hope that their initiative will not remain an isolated case but an example that will be followed by other companies and executives.