Monday protest in Rome in front of the headquarters of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. Ancip, Assiterminal, Assologistica and Uniport will participate with their own representation
Rome – Trade unions and employers will be in the square together on Monday morning in Rome in front of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. An unusual pairing, to jointly request that the exit accompaniment fund for port workers, awaited for five years, finally be established. On other issues, such as that of backdated holidays, disagreements remain, but the issue of the fund brings everyone together. Filt-Cgil, Fit-Cisl and Uiltrasporti have called the demonstration for December 1st at 3 PM and Ancip, Assiterminal, Assologistica and Uniport have not only given formal support but will participate with their own representation.
The fund is a commitment both signed in the renewal of the National Collective Labor Agreement and a legal provision since 2021, but it has never been implemented. “It was not enough to make it enforceable,” write the unions. “In the meantime, the workers, as well as the companies – they add – are paying the required economic allocation but, to date, due to continuous buck-passing between the competent ministries and an unjustified absence of politics, the Fund, which could partially resolve the system’s critical issues, has not seen the light of day.”
After all this time and with “a pension system that continues to make it difficult to meet the requirements for retirement,” for the unions the issue “can no longer be postponed.”
Not to mention that the fund could also be used for the professional retraining of port workers in view of the introduction of automation and artificial intelligence in port operations.
“The port workers cannot continue to wait in vain for a tool that the ports desperately need – concludes the union statement – because the competitiveness of a maritime terminal is measured by the efficiency and specialization of the workforce as the main infrastructure of a port system.”
And this is precisely the point also emphasized by the associations representing port companies, terminal operators and logistics companies, reiterating that the establishment of the fund is provided for by a regulation, in force since 2021 but never implemented. “The establishment of the fund is in the interest of the productive and organizational system of port companies and was designed to facilitate generational turnover, in the awareness that a sector undergoing strong transformation and transition like the port sector needs to accompany change, the insertion of new resources and professional profiles, the protection of those workers who in some roles cannot be expected to be employed until they reach pension requirements,” write Ancip, Assiterminal, Assologistica and Uniport.
Their presence alongside the trade union organizations is unusual. “But the message we want to send is that, where interests are common and are represented with transparency and balance, it makes sense to do it together” adds the note, which does not fail to also mention the issues of disagreement with the unions, such as the dispute over holiday pay allowances, which is a veritable ticking time bomb.
It’s fine to demonstrate together on the fund, in short, “but this does not mean that, where aspects of divergence remain, such as on the issue of the dispute over holiday pay allowances, the positions remain distant and clearly sharply opposed, but this too is part of the dialectic of industrial relations and of how we responsibly intend to assert our role and the interests of the companies we represent: companies that are made of people.”
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