Confindustria Bari: 'A legality protocol against unfair competition'

Against dumping and undeclared work, 'we are working to sign a Legality Protocol, like the one signed for the fashion sector in Lombardy'.

The president of Confindustria Bari and BAT, Mario Aprile, anticipates one of the measures to be put in place to 'enhance the virtuous companies' in the district against unfair competition, one of the thorniest and most recurrent issues. A point on which Pasquale Natuzzi has also been insisting for years, being one of the first to endorse the project to replicate the agreement signed by institutions and social partners in Lombardy after the Milan Public Prosecutor's investigations into 'caporalato' (forced labour).

ResearchUnioncamere for Filca Cisl Bari also denounces the distorting effect of the presence of 'irregular workshops, often run by Chinese, who, operating as subcontractors, managed to guarantee extremely low costs,' it says. But the panorama is varied, says those who work in the sector.

So the idea is that of 'a stamp,' explains Aprile, 'for companies that can demonstrate that they are reliable partners for big brands and that could also obtain concrete rewards in calls for tenders and public funding'. Legality becomes one of the district's challenges, along with 'investing in innovation, diversifying the offer, aggregating small businesses to be truly competitive'. Unity is now the watchword in the Jesi industrial area (Santeramo), as in via Gravina in Altamura or in Gravina itself, to move 'from the crisis to a pact for work', repeats the secretary Filca Cisl, Luigi Sideri, who brought together all the players in the area on Monday 23 March.

"A production system that is more solid, competitive, and capable of tackling international markets" is the goal repeated by Puglia's councillor for economic development, EugenioDi Sciascio, who assures efforts to "set up concrete tools to support investments for professional upgrading and through the measures managed by Puglia Sviluppo. By April,' he adds, 'we will start the preparatory process with the Basilicata Region for an interregional round table dedicated to upholstered furniture, together with companies, employers' associations, universities and trade unions, because the solution to the current critical situation lies only in the ability to network'. The joint initiatives of the various administrations for the relaunch of the district are also heading in the same direction, as are the developments in theNatuzzi dispute - two sides of the same coin, everyone around here repeats.