Wbo (Workers buyout) how solution and potential to save companies in crisis or in the absence of successors: This is the focus of the conference, organized by Legacoop Veneto with the contribution of the Venice Rovigo Chamber of Commerce, which took place yesterday morning at the headquarters in Piazza Garibaldi.
After the institutional greetings brought by Alberto Capuzzo, general director of Camera Servizi srl, with the interventions of various managers and specialists in the sector, a broad overview was offered on the crisis of companies which, through generational turnover and WBOs, can be helped and saved from bankruptcy.
The acronym Wbo indicates all those cooperative enterprises in which, thanks to the start-up offered by Legacoop, the workers themselves take over the reins of the company thus guaranteeing jobs, the preservation of skills, capabilities and the maintenance of the market.
Through a dense network of sentinels in the area, such as trade union associations, trade-employer associations and the consultancy of professionals, it is possible arrive at the increase of increasingly knowable and actionable solutions. Faced with the irreversible economic crisis or the lack of a prospect of generational change, these answers become feasible where the will of the workers and finance exist. Legacoop, giving various examples of companies already operating in the sector, verifies the requirements and also offers this model to medium-small companies in the Venetian and Polesine areas.
The data presented highlights that in Italy, from 1989 to 2020, 323 Wbos were estimated for over 10,000 workers involved with a survival rate of 35%, since 2003, when the new Marcora law came into force, the rate has risen to 75%, bringing the return on public investment to 1 in 7 (for every euro, 7 of return). Looking more closely at the situation in Veneto, there are 10 experiences followed by Legacoop which generate 40 million euros a year. Important excellences, such as Kuni in Badia Polesine, Sportarredo Group in Gruaro, are some of these.
Luca Mori, of the Cisl Veneto labor policies department, also representing CGIL and UIL, commented: “Legacoop and the trade union associations agreed, last February, a memorandum of understanding aimed at the common promotion of the WBO. The will of the workers is essential.”
Afterwards, addressing the issue of missed generational transitions and the resulting crisis, Catia Ventura, deputy secretary of Cna Padova Rovigo and the secretary of Confapi Veneto, Nicola Zanon, also spoke. “Our bet – said Mirko Pizzolato, Legacoop director – is to be able to involve finance in a successful waypromoting understanding and growing availability, so as to better explain the mechanisms to businesses, associations and workers”.
Cooperation, information and feasibility are the key points that also guide the next projects: already on the working table of Legacoop, trade unions and trade associations, the study of three other WBOs for the regional territory.
