ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

Anna Garbagna reports from Italy on new appointments at contract cleaning association FISE.

At the end of its recent meeting, Giulio Quercioli Dessena was confirmed as president of FISE - Confindustria’s Federation of Service Companies. At his side there are the new vice presidents Pietro Colucci (Assoambiente), Riccardo Formica (Acap), Claudia Giuliani (Anip) and Roberto Lucchini (Aniasa).

Giulio Quercioli Dessena is a member of Gruppo IGM Ambiente, an Italian environmental services company which is also active at international level in the integrated management of the waste cycle (from collection to final disposal) and in the building of waste and water treatment plants.
“The main objectives of my new mandate will be the development of a services representation system, also within Confindustria, and the quality  development of our services, which is critical for the country’s economic development,” said Quercioli Dossena during the meeting.

"In concrete terms," he added, "our activity will focus immediately on three points: completion of the liberalisation of public services, improvement of regulations on public and private contracts, and solution of the sector’s economic and financial issues such as delays in payments by public administration, and the credit crunch."

At the beginning of this year we learned that in Italy 2,500 jobs in the cleaning sector will be at risk in 2010, resulting in dangerous lapses in hygiene, routine maintenance and safety in schools. These are the consequences of the directive (Direttiva MIUR 9537) issued last December by the Education, University and Research Ministry, and reported by the Employers' Associations Ancst-LEGACOOP, Federlavoro-Confcooperative and FISEAnip/Confindustria, together with  the trade union organisations of the sector’s workers  Filcams-CGIL, Fisascat-CISL and Uiltrasporti-UIL.

The government directive implies a reduction of 25 per cent in funding for cleaning contracts and other auxiliary activities, and it is not based on real service needs  but it is exclusively based on indiscriminate cuts of public expenditure which will have immediate consequences. Consequently the industrial or cooperative companies involved will be forced in the near future to activate staff reduction procedures, thus triggering a social conflict which could have worrying consequences, especially in the south.

Lack of support

It must be remembered that the cleaning sector lacks a social shock absorber (or  social welfare network), apart from exceptional and temporary measures launched by the government, (the so called 'Cassa in deroga') however it is limited in time and supposedly insufficient to tackle the emergency.

The redundancy programme will inevitably have serious social consequences and it will mostly affect workers with lower levels of education, for whom relocation on the market in the current economic climate will be very difficult, if not impossible. Employers associations and union organisations have therefore asked for a round table debate with the education ministry and with regions-state conference but, in the meantime, they are appealing for the retraction of the directive and the immediate suspension of it while a solution to the dispute is found.