ROMA (ITALPRESS) – To focus on work, renewal of contracts, income and redistribution of wealth produced. These are the slogans at the center of the 8th national congress Uila Uil in Rome which is entitled “Work, the soul that holds us together”, in the presence, among others, of the Secretary General of Uil, PierPaolo Bombardieri; of the President of ConfAgricoltura, Massimiliano Giansanti; of the CIA-Agricoltori Italiani, Cristiano Fini. And it is precisely on the value of work and action together that the General Secretariat Uila Uil, Enrica Mammucari, has focused its introductory relationship. “Work if you impoverish it, returns fragility. If you exploit it, it returns inequalities. But if you respect it and take care of it, it returns dignity, future, community. And this is our task at the bottom: to take care of the work, the earth, the people. Only so will the work really remain the soul that holds us together,” he said. A long relationship that could only start from the plague of the caporalato and in the memory of the four workers burned alive to Amendolara, in Calabria. “In those flames, bodies were not consumed only, treated as sterpaglia, as waste. In those flames we have seen our conscience burning, our idea of work, our own soul. It is not necessary to accuse one another, nor to surrender to unjust generalizations that hurt an entire sector. It needs to be strong and to be on the same side.” Mammucari explains, the corporalate creeps into the weakest points of the system by striking the most vulnerable workers, especially migrants, and irregular, who have fewer tools to defend themselves. “Agri-food quality is not only measured in the finished product, but in everything that makes it possible: working conditions, process transparency, contract compliance, security. So much has been done, thanks above all to the pressing and continuous action of the union, but so much remains to be done”. Work is what, according to Mammucari, holds together a society, a community, a country, a democracy. “Work cannot be reduced to a simple performance. In order to contribute to healthy growth, it must be considered as an essential tool of dignity, relationship, participation, responsibility, care, mutual recognition, self-building and belonging.” In this scenario, according to the General Secretariat, the agribusiness sector plays a strategic role. It is a fundamental pillar of the national economy, capable of integrating economy, territory, environment, culture, identity and social relations into a single, vital organism. A system that involves almost 2 million workers and produces, as well as goods, collective values. “This is the strength of our industry: the excellence of the product generated by the deep bond between quality, history, territory and human work. For this reason we say clearly that in order to exist the Made in Italy cannot be detached from values and principles of ethics, it must become Made in Human”. But also bargaining and Pac. “Contracting is the pin where the overalls are built and wealth is redistributed. In these four years, we have renewed all national contracts, improving rights and safeguards and finding solutions adapted to the specificities of the different sectors – recalled the secretary – An inclusive contract that looks to the future of the sector, its attractiveness also strengthening the instrument of conventions to promote greater stability and that gives answers on social rights and permits to non-Italian workers. The task of the union is decisive: bringing power into a dimension of justice, through bargaining and representation.” Finally, Mammucari stressed that Europe “must make a qualitative leap in terms of awareness and responsibility. Can’t just chase eventsi. Overtime needs extraordinary measures, such as those recently approved by the European Commission with the stop to customs duties on fertilizers and which should lead to review the rules of the European budget, in favour of the social and economic holding of our confederation of states. We need common investments, an industrial vision, an integrated energy policy, a strategy capable of governing the great transitions, without dumping the costs on workers, families, territories. It also serves the courage to say that there can be no derogations and margins of intervention only for a war economy while there are no funds to defend social cohesion, productive competitiveness, energy and food security, the quality of people’s lives. We believe that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) must be strengthened and rethinked in its strategic function, which goes well beyond that of mere support tool, to become a true agenda for the future. In the context of this agenda we reaffirm the need to defend and strengthen the social condition of the CAP,” he concluded.
– Photo xb1/Italpress –(ITALPRESS).
