Ala responds to Sieco on Castellanza workers: “You cannot ask us to escape our legal obligations”

The back and forth between Sieco and Ala does not subside on the story of the workers of the urban hygiene service of Castellanza who remained in limbo after the transfer of management from the company based in Cassano Magnago to that of Legnano.

In recent days it was Sieco who returned to the matter by claiming that Ala (Amga’s subsidiary) should have applied the social clause as done in the past by Sieco to hire workers with the same contracts while Amga has repeatedly reiterated that it cannot do so and for this had opened ad hoc recruitment notices to reabsorb the former Sieco workers even if under less advantageous contractual conditions for the workers.

Below is Ala’s response:

With renewed amazement we learn the content of the Explanatory Note of the AU of Sieco srl, Dr. Giordani, which certainly has a media impact, but is completely without foundation.
Although there has never been, nor could there have been, any “commitment to negotiate”, aimed at avoiding legal obligations regarding staff recruitment, Aemme Linea Ambiente has never shied away from the confrontation with Sieco.
It should be reiterated, first of all, that the obligation – in today’s circumstances – to give rise to the publicly available selective procedure for the hiring of staff is sanctioned, under penalty of nullity of employment contracts, by the perfectly current art. 19 of the Consolidated Law on Investee Companies (Legislative Decree no. 175/2016), but that a similar obligation had been in force since 2001, when Legislative Decree no. 165 (art. 35), imposed, for in-house companies, “the hiring of staff through selective procedures, …”. Sieco, after not having responded to our multiple requests in this regard, finally states that it has instead hired the employees in question through a social clause; therefore, not through the mandatory procedure. We take note of this, but this certainly cannot lead us to avoid our legal obligations.
In fact, it is noted that, as can be seen from the ruling of the Constitutional Court n. 68/2011, the use of social clauses cannot be used as a tool to evade compliance with the principles of public evidence envisaged regarding hiring by publicly held companies, which are directly based on the art. 97 Constitution.
ALA intends, once again, to underline that nowhere has any commitment been made that requires it to break the regulatory perimeter that it must respect.
What ALA has always done, is doing and will do, is to work to guarantee workers the best legitimately applicable conditions: and it is committed to this.