IL SOLE (PC): VICTORY AGAINST DISMISSALS
FOR FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION
Great victory for workers Il Sole di Piacenza where the successor company had excluded from the contract the combative workers registered with our organization – who have been serving in this company for over 10 years – in anti-union retaliation
With a week of 24-hour strike, workers have won another important battle to defend their workers’ interests and improve living and working conditions.
The immediate reinstatement will take place today.
Strength working class
Fight hard without fear
April 16,
YES Cobas Piacenza
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Press release:
anti-union repression allied to exploitation
Today, yet another meeting was held regarding the delicate situation of the Il Sole site in Piacenza, during which the company and contractor announced that they wanted to fire 19 people who have been working on the site for more than ten years (in some cases twenty).
These workers are mostly members of SI Cobas, but there are also some members of Uil and the CGIL acronym also participated in the negotiation.
During the meeting, the company communicated how the Prefecture had told it not to consider this dispute within its jurisdiction, yet another demonstration of how employers only understand the language of struggles and strikes.
During the meeting, the company and contractor confirmed their intention to exclude nineteen employees in the absence of any organizational reason.
The Union has reiterated several times the illicit nature of the contract change that occurred, yet another rip-off to the detriment of workers in which the name of the company changes but not the people who make it up.
All this in broad daylight and without causing scandal, indeed with the blessing of the client itself.
Obviously, these are the workers with the greatest seniority in terms of unionization, and this reveals the instrumental and anti-union nature of the entire operation, against which the Union will move on a legal as well as union level.
On the other hand, it is not a single case: in the same hours, even at Fercam in Piacenza the nine workers with the greatest length of service and union membership are being excluded with excuses and ploys while there is no shortage of work in the warehouse and indeed the workforce is insufficient to carry it out.
These and other similar cases are now daily news for our province, with all due respect to the empty and distant proclamations of the administration and corporate giants, who have gathered in recent days to sing the praises of the “positive balance” for Piacenza in terms impact on logistics.
If this happens it is also and above all thanks to the continuous attacks of the various repressive apparatuses, which in recent years have severely hit over a thousand workers and dozens of trade unionists with complaints, arrests and measures to limit personal freedom.
These actions allow employers to behave however they want against workers while feeling their backs are covered.
The equation is simple and plain to see for all the people of Piacenza: attacking grassroots trade unionism and its representatives means de facto aiding and abetting the double level made up of clients (large multinationals of exploitation or local employers) and contractors who completely fictitious contracts ultimately hire the workers, without any real justification for the contracts themselves and producing as their only consequence the compression of the cost of labour.
If the average salary in the Piacenza area has grown in recent years, the credit goes to the expansive struggles conducted by SI Cobas between logistics, food, healthcare and the agricultural sector.
Attacking and repressing these struggles means sending a precise message to all the workers of Piacenza: work is a gift from the employer and it must be accepted under any conditions and at any pay.
We will continue to fight against this barbaric and uncivilized logic following the path of struggle: we are sure that the dignity of Piacenza workers is stronger than any cowardly repressive action.
April 13,
YES Cobas Piacenza
YES Cobas
