Giordano (Ugl): «reverse auctions on salaries ruining the market, structures in difficulty»
«Work as a value to be protected, while in too many cases talking about seasonal workers for Matera’s structures means talking about a social plague». This was stated by the Provincial Secretary of Ugl Matera, Pino Giordano. «Tourism workers in Matera City and the Ionian-Metapontina seaside coastal strip are a social plague that needs to be reflected upon. Like every season, we are looking for staff who are available to work weekdays, Sundays and holidays under the sun and who knows for how many hours with a monthly salary that is not guaranteed every day but, above all, low in salary, so much so that they have to work countless hours a day to earn a survival salary at the end of the month. For some years, hotels and restaurants have been lacking workers for the summer and we are in trouble: they cannot be found. Here we are. Indeed, here we go again. Here, summer arrives, the Matera area begins the season and the problem of recent years returns, there is a lack of seasonal workers: from lifeguards to waiters, from cooks to dishwashers, to everything that revolves around the tourist system. But how, but why? Today there are those who have chosen to carry out reverse auctions on salaries, thus ruining the market, this approach is unimaginable. Lowering the quality and professionalism of staff in exchange for economic savings penalizes the entire sector. The waiter and all the summer staff are in all respects the business card of the place. Often the cause of the evil is that seasonal workers are not paid enough. Great insult to housemaids, the new frontier of exploitation, hired with apparently regular seasonal contracts, but whose wages are calculated and paid based on the rooms cleaned. A new trend: for every room made, a starvation rate, payment on time to be shared perhaps with a colleague. The conditions during this summer season are experiencing a notable worsening, it is useless to complain because there are no staff willing to work, urgent human conditions are needed which smell of dignity of work and for the worker. At low wages we are forced to accept the social illegality of black or gray work that we are forced to do to survive, and nothing more: not Ugl Matera – concludes Giordano – we will not be spectators of a social destructuring of entire families, already tried from the social economic crisis. And what do the Labor Inspectorate, the Institutions and the Police Force do? They go for a tour of the facilities in the Ionian/Metaponto area and, anonymously: everyone knows, but they pretend not to know!! It’s reality!
