Clash between Confcommercio and Filcams Cgil over holiday work and part-time work

The harsh confrontation between Confcommercio and Filcams Cgil over work during the holiday periods does not abate.

"Behind every shopping center opened on August 15th there are workers who simply ask for decent wages, sustainable hours, employment stability and the right to reconcile work and private life", declared the general secretary of Filcams CGIL Fabrizio Russo, in a note two days ago, where he called for overcoming "a model that produces poor work and precariousness, based on 20-hour weekly contracts, often imposed and not chosen".

The president of Conad and vice-president of Confcom, Mauro Lusetti, responded in a statement inviting a discussion "without slogans and without simplistic equations". "Part-time and precariousness are not synonymous and confusing the two phenomena means offering a simplistic reading of a much more complex labor market", underlined Lusetti.

Russo (Filcams) responded by claiming to defend "a multitude of real people forced into forms of involuntary part-time work". According to union data, in commerce 38.2% of employees work part time and only a third of workers have chosen it voluntarily. "In some regions, strikes are used to see the right of workers to avoid the imposition of shifts on holidays without sanctions recognized", recalled the Filcams leader.

"I think this idea of ​​workers forced almost as if they were slaves to provide services is objectively out of any consideration", reiterated Lusetti in an interview with Repubblica. "If I have the right enshrined in the legislation and in the contracts signed with the unions to organize work to provide an adequate service, I do not oblige anyone. Saying that we guarantee holidays by exploiting other workers is a representation that does not belong to us", declared the vice-president of Confcommercio.