Contribution by Gaudenzio Parenti *
* general director of Ancip – National Association of Port Company Enterprises
Ports are not just operations and services for the /unloading of goods and rolling stock or the transit of passengers. Ports are much more and among their fundamental activities are services of general economic interest: the Sieg (Servizi di interesse economico generale). These are services that will be increasingly important in our ports.
In fact, the companies holding the concessions for these services guarantee the functional use and compliance with the criteria of cost-effectiveness of Italian commercial ports. Furthermore, they constitute the instrument for regulating the urbanization processes of ports and making them competitive also in terms of hospitality, plant safety, and urban use, with positive effects on the competitiveness of the ports.
In detail, when we talk about Sieg, the services included are lighting, cleaning and waste collection, water management, mobility, maintenance and repair, IT and telematics management, and those common to the industrial sector and the commercial sector of the port. At the legal level, two other fundamental services are also included, namely the management of maritime stations and services and railway maneuvers within the port area. But the future challenge will be to also include in this context the management of submarine data transmission cables and servers placed underwater, always, of course, in the spaces falling under the regulation of the Port System Authorities.
Currently, however, these fundamental services are no longer regulated at the national level but are left to the discretion of the Port System Authorities. With the repeal, in fact, by Legislative Decree 232 of 2017, of the Ministerial Decree of November 14, 1994, a void was created, both regulatory and functional in nature, in the individual Authorities, which does not allow for a homogeneous classification of the different services, with the consequence that sometimes some of them, if not specifically identified, are provided in the absence of regulation pursuant to Article 68 of the Navigation Code.
Another deficit concerns the fact that these companies with their workers do not have full and complete dignity in the National Collective Labor Contract for port workers. A flaw that is no longer acceptable, both from the side of the companies that should “compete” on an uneven playing field with those who apply less costly National Collective Labor Agreements or with tariffs set by the Adsp that do not take them into account; and from the side of the workers who would not have the same economic and regulatory guarantees as those who work, instead, for the port companies (ex articles 16, 17 and 18 of law n. 84/94).
A deficit that, inevitably, is also amplified in the current text of the famous “accompanying fund for the exit of port workers” which, in an absurd and very short-sighted manner, does not include the workers of the port Sieg. All the more so in light of the fact that some concessionary companies that use the port National Collective Labor Agreement would be setting aside the expected economic items.
Therefore, as Ancip, an employers’ association that also represents these concessionary companies, we have begun fruitful discussions with the IX Transport Commission in the person of the President, Hon. Salvatore Deidda, and with the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Hon.
Edoardo Rixi and his ministerial structure, to evaluate proposals or regulatory changes, also shared with part of the national trade union, to fill these gaps and, above all, to homogenize and harmonize these services on a national basis also at the legal level. Ideas that we have already presented and represented in various hearings at the Interministerial Committee for Maritime Policies (Cipom) and at the Transport Commission of the Chamber of Deputies. Proposals that, together with those concerning the other types of port companies, we will possibly present in the now imminent Reform of Italian port services.
