In Puglia there is still a long way to go in terms of rights at work: there are too many ongoing disputes with workers and consequently families, literally suspended on a thread waiting to know their future and understand if and how it will be possible “surviving the present” where, in addition to the uncertainties relating to the salary, the high prices that inevitably leave many citizens broke do not help.
From Bosch, to Sanità Service, up to Ipersimply (for which 58 workers are at risk) and Soa or the historic Ilva dispute. These are just some of the disputes taking place in Puglia and specifically in the Bari area with around a thousand workers at risk. Just yesterday (30 April), the procedure (already announced in recent days) of collective dismissal by the company Soa, an arl consortium company, was initiated against twelve workers in the administrative offices, the switchboard, the commercial offices and technicians with the CCNL for Commerce. The company explained that the decision is due “to a crisis situation that continues to grip” it “due to the growing lower turnover and reduced volumes of activity”.
“Unfortunately, this represents – explained Antonio Ventrlli, general secretary of Filcams Cgil of Bari, who has already spoken on Borderline24 regarding the issue of work – a sad epilogue announced which is only just beginning, considering the well-known crisis situation of the company”. Filcams Cgil requested a meeting to carry out the joint examination relating to the procedure with the aim of analyzing the causes of the redundancies and finding solutions that allow workers to have certainties. The union’s invitation to the company, which however sounds like a warning to the world of work, is that of greater social responsibility towards workers “providing them with the possibility of re-employment and any measures of redevelopment and reconversion”.
Not just disputes. According to what emerged from the latest data available in Puglia, approximately 93% of contracts are precarious, of these, 33% concern the activation of contracts that last just over a month and 25%, on the other hand, contracts, which are always precarious , with a duration of just over three months. This was declared by the general secretary of the CGIL Puglia, Gigia Bucci, during the presentation of the start of the collection of signatures for the campaign “I put my signature for work”. “It is evident – she highlighted – that in this precarious condition any individual, whether man or woman, whether young or old, is not in a position to think or plan a minimum existence. There is an abuse of fixed-term contracts and there is a government that wants to make them the rule, the normal working condition within companies. We say no and one of these referendums is linked to overcoming precariousness. There are many open disputes in Puglia because this is a territory in the South that is no longer on this government’s agenda, just as the issue of stable and secure work is no longer on the agenda. In Puglia there are historical disputes open starting from that of Ilva, from all the companies in the related industries and in the industrial sector which now, following a lack of industrial policy by this government, are unable to receive answers. The data that are most worrying are those linked to youth and female unemployment, but the data on workers on layoffs are also worrying. It is a South, a Puglia, which suffers from this point of view and which does not yet see any prospects”, she concluded.
In the meantime, today, in Bari we will remember Giuseppe Di Vittorio, trade unionist, politician and anti-fascist, founder and general secretary of the CGIL. The ceremony is scheduled for 9.30 in the presence of the mayor Antonio Decaro at the plaque in his memory located in Piazza Chiurlia. During the initiative, a wreath of flowers will be placed under the tombstone, placed on 21 November 1977, on the twentieth anniversary of Di Vittorio’s death.
Freepik photo
