For years we have become accustomed to thinking that precarious employment was a typical phenomenon of the private world, linked to the uncertainties of production and the market, to peaks and declines in production.
We bitterly note that this is not the case. Insecurity is a plague that is spreading also and above all in totally public companies, those called upon to guarantee the exercise of citizens’ fundamental rights.
In Veneto Strade (a company 76% owned by the Region and the remaining shares by the Province of Belluno, Treviso, Padua and the metropolitan city of Venice) there are around twenty workers with fixed-term contracts expiring in December 2024. These are contracts lasting even less than one year or already subject to extension. Unlike in the past, in fact, the duration of the fixed-term contract has been reduced (9 months instead of one year) and the period of precarious employment has been lengthened (in fact, after one year, instead of being converted, the employment contracts are simply extended). These are highly specialized workers, who have passed strict selections, possess important qualifying qualifications and who know the area well and for this reason, are in great demand on the market. They are the ones who, on a daily basis, guarantee the safety of the provincial road network: whether it snows, whether there are landslides, mudslides, accidents, they know how to intervene and they do it with knowledge and a sense of responsibility. They are precarious. They cannot ask for mortgages or loans. They cannot have a life plan because in the Bank they have a 9-month fixed-term contract and no certainty of the future. The real risk is that more than one person will give up on making their way together in Veneto Strade and choose less prestigious companies but which provide some more guarantees, or that future selection notices will be deserted (as happened during the selections for the classification levels superior).
The reasons for these corporate choices?
Certainly not an excess of personnel given that even today the staff on the road is understaffed compared to needs (an illness is enough to not guarantee the operation of some teams in the area). We are not even aware that any streets have been repurposed as public green areas and that activity has therefore been reduced. The km to be managed are always the same, the number of operators has decreased in the last decade and… the much ostentatious relaunch of the virtuous Veneto model is crushed by an increase in precarious employment never seen in the past (not even at the time of the feared opening of the extraordinary redundancy fund it had come to this!)
Please do not let us be told that the uncertainty is linked to the reclassification of the road network and the nationalisation, with the entry of Anas, of a part of the road network. This is a political choice that no one can think of dumping on the workers. As far as we are concerned, if tomorrow the road network is managed by Anas, all workers will have to pass seamlessly under Anas, with the same rights, the same pay, and the length of service they have acquired. The same thing if the Province decides to manage the remaining provincial ones independently. We will not give discounts. We will not accept failed solutions adopted in the reclassification in other Regions: service, secondments, contracting companies on behalf of the manager. The outsourcing of activities to external companies (see snow clearing, see mowing, see maintenance) has led to road network disasters known to all. They have impoverished the quality of work, they have impoverished the quality of service, they have impoverished a territory with no more oxygen.
In a private company we negotiate to reduce precarious employment, to discuss industrial plans and growth prospects in the interests of work. This does not happen, almost as if the road network were less important than any industrial product. We renew our invitation to the owners, the Region (also called to approve the three-year hiring plan) and the Province of Belluno to discuss with us and open a real and serious discussion table. To date, the request for a meeting formalized a month ago has remained completely unheeded. It’s a shame, however, that the voice of the orange suits has reached us clearly and loudly and, if necessary, as in the past, we will be ready to take it under the buildings of the institutions.
Alessandro Piras – General Secretary of Filt Veneto
Alessandra Fontana – Filt Cgil Veneto Secretary
