The list of critical observations on the draft port reform text, which the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Matteo Salvini has said he wants to bring to the Council of Ministers by the end of the year, is growing longer.
“Critical” is how Filt Cgil defined its judgment in a statement: “The draft reform represents a deterioration compared to the founding principles of law 84/94, based on administrative and financial autonomy, responsibility, development, participation, and transparency. A reform that does not address the real critical issues of the sector, such as the early retirement fund, and that jeopardizes the balance built over thirty years between public and private, territories and institutions, business and labor. The establishment of Porti d’Italia spa modifies the current multi-level governance which has proven efficient so far, depriving the System Port Authorities of their administrative surpluses and main port revenues. A measure that penalizes their functioning with heavy repercussions on their budgets and the stability of the entire system.”
According to the Cgil’s transport federation “this maneuver risks damaging the social function of the Adsp and consequently the interventions provided for by the law, including for maintaining employment during times of traffic crisis. Staff are not valued, with the risk of generating redundancies and cuts, worsening the understaffing of the current bodies. The role of the national port contract is also ignored. Furthermore, there are no interventions to improve safety at work in ports, to reduce the fragmentation of contracts, to counter the phenomenon of dominant power positions that are creating monopolies, which fundamentally undermine competition, and to prevent the emergence of new terminals outside the Adsp network, as in the case of Fiumicino. On an institutional level, the reform raises more than one doubt regarding its coherence with the regions’ competences in port matters and the method adopted is also unacceptable, without any involvement of trade union organizations and without any preliminary discussion.”
Hence a request to the Mit shared with several parties: “Given this framework and method, the immediate opening of a discussion table at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport is formally needed, with all social and employer parties to arrive at a balanced and shared solution. A serious, transparent, and participatory path is necessary, starting from the full and correct application of Law 84/94.”
