Page 210 - 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. 210
plex Gateways
Bruno Korelič, a charismatic and well-known figure, for a long time direc-
tor of the port, who claimed that crane operators were fighting for their
privileges (Fabijan 2012). It was the local newspaper Primorske Novice, and
especially the national TV reporting, that also gave a face and voice to
the ‘other’ strikers: the IPS workers. Many articles appeared that report-
ed the conditions of work and exploitation and this aroused understand-
ing and support in public opinion. National television also contributed to
this by broadcasting interviews with workers who denounced their ‘ser-
vile’ condition. Even a union like that of the crane operators, represent-
ing secure specialized workers, when discussing the model of work or-
ganization in the port included in its analysis workers who until then had
been much less visible.
If the hypothesis that defines the 2011 strike as an iceberg strike
is correct, there remains to be investigated if and how the connections
within the port union world have changed the relations between ‘secure’
workers and ‘uncertain’ workers and, furthermore, how the connection
between the port and the city has evolved.
In their interviews, the representatives of the Koper Crane Operators’
Union also referred to the hard work carried out by previous generations
to build the port in the Socialist period, proudly recovering a part of its
past that became a local identity element in the narrative. Therefore,
even the contemporary port continues to be a strategic area of the city.
Furthermore, it still transmits a strong identity drive, despite being a
place far removed from previous working methods and closed, for safety
reasons, to nonprofessionals. It therefore continues to express potential.
If the development of containers seemed to have impaired connections
between the port and urban society along with the territory, the most re-
cent moments of struggle and protest go, instead, towards a new recovery
of relations with the reference territory.
In Trieste also, the port is proving to be a place for the transfor-
mation of social identity, becoming the fulcrum of a new image of the
city. Analysing what happened at the trade union level, the birth of the
Trieste Port Workers’ Coordination represents one of the elements of this
change. In 2014, the failure of a historic cooperative in the port, with
the consequent job loss for 8 people, replaced by workers from Taranto,
was the spark that led to the creation of the Coordination. The fact that
Trieste employees had been supplanted by workers from outside opened
a dispute over the stabilization of those who lived in the city. However,
210
Bruno Korelič, a charismatic and well-known figure, for a long time direc-
tor of the port, who claimed that crane operators were fighting for their
privileges (Fabijan 2012). It was the local newspaper Primorske Novice, and
especially the national TV reporting, that also gave a face and voice to
the ‘other’ strikers: the IPS workers. Many articles appeared that report-
ed the conditions of work and exploitation and this aroused understand-
ing and support in public opinion. National television also contributed to
this by broadcasting interviews with workers who denounced their ‘ser-
vile’ condition. Even a union like that of the crane operators, represent-
ing secure specialized workers, when discussing the model of work or-
ganization in the port included in its analysis workers who until then had
been much less visible.
If the hypothesis that defines the 2011 strike as an iceberg strike
is correct, there remains to be investigated if and how the connections
within the port union world have changed the relations between ‘secure’
workers and ‘uncertain’ workers and, furthermore, how the connection
between the port and the city has evolved.
In their interviews, the representatives of the Koper Crane Operators’
Union also referred to the hard work carried out by previous generations
to build the port in the Socialist period, proudly recovering a part of its
past that became a local identity element in the narrative. Therefore,
even the contemporary port continues to be a strategic area of the city.
Furthermore, it still transmits a strong identity drive, despite being a
place far removed from previous working methods and closed, for safety
reasons, to nonprofessionals. It therefore continues to express potential.
If the development of containers seemed to have impaired connections
between the port and urban society along with the territory, the most re-
cent moments of struggle and protest go, instead, towards a new recovery
of relations with the reference territory.
In Trieste also, the port is proving to be a place for the transfor-
mation of social identity, becoming the fulcrum of a new image of the
city. Analysing what happened at the trade union level, the birth of the
Trieste Port Workers’ Coordination represents one of the elements of this
change. In 2014, the failure of a historic cooperative in the port, with
the consequent job loss for 8 people, replaced by workers from Taranto,
was the spark that led to the creation of the Coordination. The fact that
Trieste employees had been supplanted by workers from outside opened
a dispute over the stabilization of those who lived in the city. However,
210
