Page 203 - Mellinato, Giulio, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime Port Cities: The Northern Adriaticin a Comparative Perspective. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
P. 203
The Labour Factor: The Docks of Trieste and Koper through the Global Crisis
Koper d.d. has acquired a legally binding opinion, according to which giv-
ing instructions and supervising IPS third-party personnel complies with
the execution of the concession contract, if the supervision and instruc-
tions given do not refer to the execution of the agreed services. The com-
pany also appealed against two judgments of the Koper Court of 2011 and
2016, in which the Court confirmed that cases of collaboration with IPS
third-party workers did not configure the administration of labour (Lukič
2017).
The Encon ruling has affected the entire port job market: Luka
Koper d.d. should have requested the necessary licenses from partners
to perform labour supply activities or should have directly employed IPS
workers. Although the port administration claimed that other collabo-
rations were not at risk, the workers’ unfavourable situation was once
again in the spotlight when the Supervisory Board voiced their distrust
in the Administration led by Dragomir Matić during the Extraordinary
Shareholders’ Meeting at the end of December 2017. Matić, in turn,
stressed that the administration of Luka Koper d.d., in the operation-
al plan for 2018, rejected by the Supervisory Board, had foreseen 232
new hires for 2018 and over 500 new hires over the following five years.
Regarding the requests made by the unions to hire IPS workers, he then
clarified that it was not possible to immediately hire 1000 people (T. R.
2017; Al. and L. 2017).
A review of the period 1 July 2014 – 30 June 2017, carried out by PWC,
has sifted through Luka Koper’s collaboration with IPS third-party work-
ers. In particular, according to the report, there was no strategic docu-
ment that regulated relations with suppliers of port services or a mod-
el for managing them. It was not even clear how many external workers
were needed. It also follows that Luka Koper made use of IPS third-par-
ty manpower without regard for public procedures for the supply of ser-
vices or the services themselves (Bucik Ozebek 2017). ‘There should be
a procedure for awarding services by means of which the transparen-
cy of the procedures would be demonstrable and that there would be no
people involved who were connected in any way with Luka Koper’, said
the Council member, Rado Antolovič, in an interview with the newspa-
per Delo about the Luka Koper analysis (Babič Stermecki 2017). In these
statements Antolovič, albeit not quite directly, seemed to take up one of
the union’s complaints, namely the fact that some Luka Koper employ-
ees were involved in the subcontracting. Besides, in Antolovič’s opinion,
203
Koper d.d. has acquired a legally binding opinion, according to which giv-
ing instructions and supervising IPS third-party personnel complies with
the execution of the concession contract, if the supervision and instruc-
tions given do not refer to the execution of the agreed services. The com-
pany also appealed against two judgments of the Koper Court of 2011 and
2016, in which the Court confirmed that cases of collaboration with IPS
third-party workers did not configure the administration of labour (Lukič
2017).
The Encon ruling has affected the entire port job market: Luka
Koper d.d. should have requested the necessary licenses from partners
to perform labour supply activities or should have directly employed IPS
workers. Although the port administration claimed that other collabo-
rations were not at risk, the workers’ unfavourable situation was once
again in the spotlight when the Supervisory Board voiced their distrust
in the Administration led by Dragomir Matić during the Extraordinary
Shareholders’ Meeting at the end of December 2017. Matić, in turn,
stressed that the administration of Luka Koper d.d., in the operation-
al plan for 2018, rejected by the Supervisory Board, had foreseen 232
new hires for 2018 and over 500 new hires over the following five years.
Regarding the requests made by the unions to hire IPS workers, he then
clarified that it was not possible to immediately hire 1000 people (T. R.
2017; Al. and L. 2017).
A review of the period 1 July 2014 – 30 June 2017, carried out by PWC,
has sifted through Luka Koper’s collaboration with IPS third-party work-
ers. In particular, according to the report, there was no strategic docu-
ment that regulated relations with suppliers of port services or a mod-
el for managing them. It was not even clear how many external workers
were needed. It also follows that Luka Koper made use of IPS third-par-
ty manpower without regard for public procedures for the supply of ser-
vices or the services themselves (Bucik Ozebek 2017). ‘There should be
a procedure for awarding services by means of which the transparen-
cy of the procedures would be demonstrable and that there would be no
people involved who were connected in any way with Luka Koper’, said
the Council member, Rado Antolovič, in an interview with the newspa-
per Delo about the Luka Koper analysis (Babič Stermecki 2017). In these
statements Antolovič, albeit not quite directly, seemed to take up one of
the union’s complaints, namely the fact that some Luka Koper employ-
ees were involved in the subcontracting. Besides, in Antolovič’s opinion,
203
