Terminal operators: 'No disputes over holiday supplements in wages'
Terminal operators appeal to trade unions not to let court rulings supersede the covenants written into the collective agreement for employees
Key points
Italian terminal operators are sounding the alarm over possible litigation by employees to claim pay supplements in holiday pay, effective from 2007. An issue opened by a ruling of the Venice court (which gave reason to the workers of the Veneto container terminal Tiv), in line with two European provisions: directive 88 of 2003 and a ruling of the EU Court of Justice in 2007, interpreting that same directive.
Turning a spotlight on the issue, which risks spreading to all Italian docks, is Assiterminal, the association grouping the companies working on Italian docks, and the Terminal Operators section of Confindustria Genova. "The issue," stresses Alessandro Ferrari, director of Assiterminal, "originated in other areas and is now reaching the port world. The judges, including the Court of Cassation, even if not univocally, are saying that a principle has been established at EU level, according to which workers must be put in a position to take their holidays. The ruling of the Court of Justice also went into the merits of the quantification of holiday pay. The line that is being taken is that, if I earn 100 when I work, when I am on holiday I must tend to have the same pay, or else there is a potential prejudice to taking the holiday and therefore no interest in using it'.
Article 11 of the ports contract in jeopardy
The treatment of holidays, however, emphasise the Genoese terminal operators, "is clearly regulated by Article 11 of the national collective agreement for port workers. Companies have always adhered to this rule, supplemented by the provisions of the company integrative agreements, in order to define the remuneration of personnel during their annual leave. The same Ccnl, as well as the company contracts, has been negotiated and applied by the companies on the basis of the principles that differentiate between the indefensible remuneration, to be paid at any time of the employment relationship, and those governing situations for which it is necessary to recognise an inconvenience to the worker (shift work night work, overtime work increased by up to 53% of the basic salary, shift work flexibility schemes) or from those payments that are aimed at encouraging greater efficiency in work performance, linking remuneration to actual presence at work'.
The interpretation of the judges opens, however, the way to requests for pay supplements on holidays already consumed, which could lead, at the national level, to potential refunds in the order of 300 million euros, according to market estimates reported by the industry website Shippingitaly and confirmed by Assiterminal. Article 11 of the Ccnl of work, Ferrari explains, cannot be changed by judgments, "because objectively, if you do not enter into the merits of the cases and only make an economic calculation, the value of the agreement is also lost, both at the first level, therefore the national classification, and above all the company one, where you tend to negotiate productivity on economic aspects. If that is called into question, from now on, bargaining will have to be done in court'.
Assiterminal: "The State does not enter into bargaining"
In short, continued the Assiterminal director, 'there is a lot of talk about the minimum wage, about valuing collective agreements, and then there is a part of the state that enters into the regulation of labour relations in this way. I detect a discrepancy. And I am thinking especially of those sectors where there is variability of performance, depending on the organisation of work, such as the world of logistics or the reality of all those who work in shifts'.
