The first meeting will be held at the beginning of the week in the plenary at Unindustria in Rome. Meanwhile, however, the TLC sector unions have put pen to paper what will happen in Vodafone: “On March 13, Vodafone will present the company situation to the union and a plan to reorganize costs which is equivalent to around 1,000 redundancies”.
20% cut
A cut of “almost 20% of the workforce” welcomed with concern and also with very critical tones, obviously, by the trade unions as stated in the mirrored communiqués of Fistel Cisl and Slc Cgil: “We are evidently facing yet another demonstration of a wrong model for the telecommunications sector. Rate reduction caused by exaggerated competitiveness, lack of industrial vision for a sector that continues to be an activator of the digital transition in the rest of Europe”.
Falling market
Right from the start it is clear that the I accuse of trade union organizations goes well beyond the company and ultimately concerns the dynamics of a TLC sector (understood as the entire supply chain) which, according to the latest Asstel Report, left another 2% on the ground in 2021, with revenues down to 27 .9 billion. There were 41.9 in 2010. All this against investments of 7.2 billion (26% of total revenues). In this context, the operators’ cash balance, equal to the difference between Ebitda and Capex, is 1.1 billion: one tenth of the 2010 value. Pietro Giundani, president of Vodafone Italia, declared in a recent meeting that «we can already anticipate that for 2022 it will be negative”. The price war between operators weighed and still weighs: between 2020 and 2021 the drop was 2.7% in Italy against a European average of +0.6%. From December 2011 to December 2021, the decline was -33%: the worst among the main European countries. Rising energy costs and inflation are now finishing the job.
Unions: focus on the whole sector
«For several years – the notes continue – we have set up a work in this company which, starting from the negotiation in advance, has allowed a non-traumatic management of a difficult phase, starting above all from the concept of retraining workers in the face of a phase of profound change technological. For us there is no room, in this company as in the rest of the sector, for different choices than what has been done up to now. Evidently, however, it is time to also open a reasoning on the whole sector, from managers starting with Tim passing through network procurement and outsourced customers. A sector that in Europe still manages to reconcile employment capacity and quality of work is declining here exponentially year over year.
Faraoni (Fistel Cisl): Impoverishment of professionalism
«Like Fistel Cisl – comments Alessandro Faraoni, national general secretary – we have raised all our concerns on the employment issue. Furthermore, we are also worried about a strong weight loss of a leading company in the sector which suggests dark clouds on the horizon over the willingness to invest in Italy for the future. Finally, there is also the risk of an impoverishment of know how in terms of professionalism in the case of such numerous outings”.