Out of 23 workers (many, in reality, are female workers with over 30 years of service) 12/14 will be rehired, many are willing to keep the new owners. The redundancies, ironically, will take place on May 1st, Labor Day, when Crai in via Balzella will definitively close its doors and give way to the Chinese brand Mood Maison. The employees and the unions, however, are not on board, so for almost a week they have been organizing daily pickets in front of the Crai headquarters.
A protest which, yesterday, moved to Piazza Morgagni, in front of the provincial headquarters where a table was held involving the president Enzo Lattuca and the delegate councilor Luciana Garbuglia, as well as the councilor of the municipality Paola Casara, Annalisa Valmori and Vanni Salatti of the regional employment agency, Mirela Koroveshi of Filcams Cgil, Matteo Fabbri of Fisascat Cisl, Anna Lisa Paterna of Uiltucs Uil.
The owners of the incoming company did not participate, but were represented by Mario Montanari of Ascom Cesena, while Amaco Retail (to which Crai belongs) did not participate in the meeting except with the remote connection of Luca Massacessi of Ascom Lugo, as a consultant, but without the delegation to negotiate from the ownership.
“The theater of the absurd”, this is the definition that the three union acronyms give of yesterday’s meeting. In particular, Crai is in the crosshairs “which continues to hide behind an alleged, but untrue, safeguard of employment through the sale of the company branch, actually wanting to ignore its workers who instead find themselves facing a scenario uncertain, both with regards to the excess of personnel already declared by Mood Maison, and due to the absence of a clear industrial plan of the latter”.
For its part, the Province has asked for the immediate opening of the request for extraordinary layoffs and has reconvened the table promptly (the next one will be May 8th at 10am) in order to be able to discuss with the legal representatives of Amaco and Mood Maison, and “in the meantime – explain the unions – the workers will move to the employ of the transferee under the same contractual conditions, quickly being placed on extraordinary redundancy pay”.
“Unbecoming”, according to CGIL, CISL and UIL, the positions of the representatives of the companies who have “ignored the conditions of the workers and the obvious redundancies, therefore we would continue with the dispute to protect the workers involved and their dignity”. The unions’ note concludes with a reflection on the trade in via Balzella and the surrounding area: “We fear that this could only be the first of a series of closures due to the uncontrolled commercial openings in the area. It is therefore important to rationalize scenarios of this type , as there is a risk of opening fronts that could allow companies easy ways to get rid of their staff.”
Sofia Nardi
