The 450 port workers of Taranto, employed at the transhipment ports (container movement) and now unemployed, in the care of the respective port labor agencies, are safe. The allowance for them had been ensured until last March.
The decision in the Senate
Yesterday morning, however, everything changed: in the Senate Budget Committee, an amendment to the Cohesion law decree was approved (article 24 bis). The approval is the result of a transversal parliamentary initiative: the senators Ignazio Zullo of FdI, Dario Damiani and Claudio Lotito of Forza Italia and Mario Turco of M5S, together with the deputies Dario Iaia of FdI and Vito De Palma of FI. The amendment intervenes with the article “Urgent provisions for port workers” and extends the functioning of the Agency and therefore the payment of the compensation, from 81 to 90 months. The Ima is equivalent to a redundancy fund.
The allocation
«The resulting charges – it is stated in the amendment – equal to 6,600,000 euros for the year 2024, will be provided for by using the available administrative surplus relating to the 2023 financial year of the budgets of the System Authority port system of the Ionian Sea and of the Port System Authority of the Southern Tyrrhenian and Ionian Seas”.
The current rules provide that in ports in which at least 80 percent of the movement of containerized goods takes place, or has taken place in the last five years, in transshipment mode and states of corporate crisis or cessation of terminal activities have persisted for at least five years , an Agency for the administration of work in the port and for professional retraining is established by the Port System Authority, in agreement with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport.
The hope of the future
For the port of Taranto, in particular, the 9 additional months of Ima should serve to advance the various projects in the port area in which to relocate the former TCT-Evergreen, the previous concessionaire of the container terminal which for some years passed to the Turkish group Yilport. For the 6.6 million, the two Authorities “present the necessary availability”, we read in the technical document accompanying the amendment. “We are satisfied with the amendment approved by the Budget Committee, but for us the prospect is real work.” Giovanni D’Arcangelo, general secretary of the CGIL of Taranto, says that together with Francesco Zotti and Michele De Ponzio, respectively general secretary and member of the secretariat with responsibility for the FILT CGIL ports of Taranto, they followed the dispute.
