Hallo,
there are a number or reasons why the Company has found itself in this difficult financial situation, however you got the point, the Unions are trying to kill the Airline. It is quite hard to understand this if you are not familiar with Italian politics, but I will try to explain the main points:
in the last 50 years, 3 main giant worker unions, comprising workers from all sectors, allied one to the other, have "de facto" ruled the Country together with Confindustria, the Italian Industry lobbing Association, and the political parties. The power of the Unions to move votes from one side to the other is such that it is no surprise that in today Government, the Presidents of the Parliament and Senate, plus a number of Ministries are former Union's leaders.
Today, the main obstacle to the privatisation of Alitalia, is the opposition of the Unions to the separation of the Airline in two entities, Alitalia Fly and Alitalia Service. The first is the appetible one and includes the productive part of the Company, mainly fleet ,operations and commercial. The latter is the legacy of the past, a number of services such as Information technology, ground handling, general services and heavy maintenance, services that Alitalia could buy outside at a fraction of the cost, but that has been forced to keep in house up to know due to the bad practice of politics giving jobs in exchange for votes ( trough the Unions).
Serious investors are only interested in Alitalia Fly, which is predominantly staffed by flight and cabin crews, with their own Professional Associations, and only in very small numbers members of the main national unions. The Government has proposed a very good deal, since Alitalia Service would remain majority owned by a State Company, Fintecna, giving the workers the job protection they are looking for. The Unions are madly opposed to this, since if Alitalia Service, where they have thousands of members, is passed to Fintecna, they will completely loose contro of the Air Transport Industry in Italy.
I hope I have been clear enough,
G.