ABSTRACT
Merloni was founded as a family undertaking in 1930. Merloni Elettrodomestici SA was established when the main family group was broken up in 1975. The president since its foundation has been Vittorio Merloni, son of the company's founder. With some 8,200 employees, Merloni is the smallest of the groups in this study. Despite rapid growth it has never entirely lost its provincial character. External expansion has also corresponded with a period of organic growth. Output has multiplied sevenfold and foreign turnover fifteen fold. Merloni is paramountly a producer of white good. In all, the company has 11 plants in Europe of which six are in Italy, two in Portugal and one each in France, the UK and Turkey. The trade union delegates in attendance gave the Italian trade unions a mandate to proceed with negotiations and present a text for an agreement.
