of Chia.Fa.
A transport company’s appeal to the Umbrian Regional Administrative Court was enough to convince Umbria Mobility to remove the requirement for Sa8000 certification from the tender specifications for regional public transport (TPL), i.e. the most widespread certification of social responsibility in with the workers.
In fact, last May 13th, the request for a precautionary order made by a private individual arrived before the administrative judges, evidently interested in participating in the tender and who contested the Umbria Mobility notice precisely in the part in which it prescribed the SA 8000 standard, which « the appellant does not possess, considering it neither relevant to the object of the tender nor proportionate”.
However, the TAR did not have to address the issue, because, as written in the documents, «on 6 May last, determination 942/2024 was published on the Umbria Mobility website with which the contested SA 8000 certification requirement was abolished, the tender documents were consequently corrected and the deadline for submitting applications to participate was extended”, which instead of expiring on 27 May, will expire on 28 June. In this context, the private individual obviously recognized the “supervening lack of interest in the decision” of the TAR, seeing his request accepted directly by Umbria Mobility, which in this sense did not appear in court like the Region, also cited by the private.
Filt-Cgil intervened on the decision to modify the requirements for the TPL tender in Umbria, highlighting that “our concerns, which have always been raised, regarding guarantees for workers, are thus confirmed”. In particular, the union highlights that the certification removed from the tender requirements «guarantees high standards in terms of health and safety, freedom of association, right to collective bargaining, working hours, remuneration and other important aspects of work, and having eliminated it from the announcement is certainly not a good sign for the Umbrian TPL staff. Unfortunately, our fear is that the appeals may be repeated and that the already weak protections provided for employment will be further reduced. In the meantime – concludes Filt Cgil – we take note of the further postponement of the deadlines, determined by this pejorative modification”.
