Bills in Treviso, one in five families in difficulty. The CGIL: “Companies review margins and discounts”

Sos di Barbiero: “Immediately a table with suppliers and municipalities, the isee threshold for reductions must be raised to 20 thousand euros”

TREVISO. The expensive bills this year will bring a drain on Italian families of no less than 110 euros per month more. Gas, energy, water and waste will cost no less than 1,300 euros a year for a family of 4, but those who are less careful in consumption can also reach 1,500 euros to be paid more in bills than in 2021.

And while the Draghi government is trying to mitigate the impact with a new treasure to be used as a “parachute” on the impact of bills in citizens’ homes, the same families are studying measures and to mitigate the impending bloodletting. The Treviso CGIL tries to prevent the effects of what it does not hesitate to define as a “social emergency” and first launches an appeal to the local utilities and to the 94 municipalities of the Marca.

“We foresee an unprecedented blow to families”, says Paolino Barbiero, former secretary of the Spi CGIL, “The first estimates say that there could be no less than 75-80 thousand families in difficulty, in fact one in 5 throughout the territory of the province, if not even one in 4.

Because to the already weak groups we must add those who have pending mortgages and find themselves significant unforeseen charges, those who asked for the assignment of the fifth, those who were already in difficulty in meeting the payment deadlines. We need immediately a meeting of all the utilities of the territory and the municipalities that own them, to prepare measures to help families ».

Barbiero launches some proposals: “It seems to me inevitable that the Isee threshold will rise to 20 thousand euros, below which you can ask for the discounts already provided for in the agreements between utilities and trade unions, which are national models”, he begins, “Today it fluctuates between 13 thousand and 18 thousand euros, passing through an intermediate threshold of 15 thousand euros, it is reasonable to introduce higher thresholds to facilitate the bracket that today most struggles to pay at maturity ». But more generally, the CGIL asks for a sacrifice to national and local utilities. “In a scenario like this they must review the same margins foreseen in their final balances, renouncing the revenues obtained so far for 2022”, adds the trade unionist, “It is a necessary sacrifice in the face of the economic situation, we are still grappling with the pandemic, and we must reflect on the fact that increasing arrears is not convenient for anyone, least of all for the utilities themselves and the common owners ”.

The CGIL therefore asks to raise the audience of beneficiaries with reductions in the bill, so as not to have lists of overdue users that have grown out of all proportion at the end of the year. “We then ask the same municipalities to start, at the same table, a path of ecological transition to provide for more and more local energy production, with a critical mass that allows to reduce costs”, he concludes, “the government is doing its part, but they all have to do it. We are really worried about the effects of high bills on families, in recent times there has been no such thing. And keep in mind that there are not only high bills, everything is increasing, from supermarkets to bar to goods. Effective concertation can undermine the effects of these very heavy price increases “a. p.