Page 211 - 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. 211
The Labour Factor: The Docks of Trieste and Koper through the Global Crisis
the Coordination fought above all for the application of Annex VIII of the
Paris Peace Treaty within which this new body is always defined as ‘the
international free port of Trieste’. In fact, adherents of the Coordination
maintain that the port should be organized according to the Annex and
not to Law 84/94. By applying the Annex, in their opinion, traffic would
increase and so would wages, thanks to the numerous tax breaks pro-
vided. Despite the historic presence in the port of national unions, the
movement affiliated to the USB1 is, at the moment, the one that counts
the greatest number of adherents and on several occasions has aspired
to act as a privileged interlocutor of the Port Authority. Often in con-
troversy with the trio (CGIL, CISL, and UIL),2 who are accused of deal-
ing too little with workers’ requests, the Coordination, whose represent-
atives often speak in the local dialect, has been the protagonist in recent
years of various protest initiatives. They are asking the government that
the special free port regime of the port should be correctly communicat-
ed to Brussels so that Trieste should be added to the list of existing du-
ty-free points in the European Union. In summary, the Coordination is
concerned essentially with three topics: the direct hiring of all workers
operating in the port, a negotiating table for a first-level contract, and the
establishment of a special, facilitated tax regime.
Even in Trieste, as in Koper, the regularization of the ‘uncertain’
workers operating in the port has assumed a central role. It is interesting
to note the increasingly important role assumed by the ‘local’ trade un-
ions or associations that recover imaginary and specific claims linked to
the city and the territory of reference.3
Conclusions
We have followed events in the ports of Trieste and Koper before, during,
and after the years of the global economic crisis, placing them in their na-
tional contexts. The crisis, which in many economic sectors have drasti-
cally reduced the number of companies and employees, has reinforced a
1 The USB (Unione Sindacale di Base) is a union born in 2010 from a merger between
a number of different base unions.
2 The CGIL (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro), CISL (Confederazione
Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori), and UIL (Unione Italiana del Lavoro) are the main
union confederations in Italy.
3 The information on the strikes of Koper and Trieste is based on the Facebook pages
of the Sindikat žerjavistov pomorske dejavnosti Luke Koper and those of the Coor-
dinamento Lavoratori Portuali Trieste.
211
the Coordination fought above all for the application of Annex VIII of the
Paris Peace Treaty within which this new body is always defined as ‘the
international free port of Trieste’. In fact, adherents of the Coordination
maintain that the port should be organized according to the Annex and
not to Law 84/94. By applying the Annex, in their opinion, traffic would
increase and so would wages, thanks to the numerous tax breaks pro-
vided. Despite the historic presence in the port of national unions, the
movement affiliated to the USB1 is, at the moment, the one that counts
the greatest number of adherents and on several occasions has aspired
to act as a privileged interlocutor of the Port Authority. Often in con-
troversy with the trio (CGIL, CISL, and UIL),2 who are accused of deal-
ing too little with workers’ requests, the Coordination, whose represent-
atives often speak in the local dialect, has been the protagonist in recent
years of various protest initiatives. They are asking the government that
the special free port regime of the port should be correctly communicat-
ed to Brussels so that Trieste should be added to the list of existing du-
ty-free points in the European Union. In summary, the Coordination is
concerned essentially with three topics: the direct hiring of all workers
operating in the port, a negotiating table for a first-level contract, and the
establishment of a special, facilitated tax regime.
Even in Trieste, as in Koper, the regularization of the ‘uncertain’
workers operating in the port has assumed a central role. It is interesting
to note the increasingly important role assumed by the ‘local’ trade un-
ions or associations that recover imaginary and specific claims linked to
the city and the territory of reference.3
Conclusions
We have followed events in the ports of Trieste and Koper before, during,
and after the years of the global economic crisis, placing them in their na-
tional contexts. The crisis, which in many economic sectors have drasti-
cally reduced the number of companies and employees, has reinforced a
1 The USB (Unione Sindacale di Base) is a union born in 2010 from a merger between
a number of different base unions.
2 The CGIL (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro), CISL (Confederazione
Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori), and UIL (Unione Italiana del Lavoro) are the main
union confederations in Italy.
3 The information on the strikes of Koper and Trieste is based on the Facebook pages
of the Sindikat žerjavistov pomorske dejavnosti Luke Koper and those of the Coor-
dinamento Lavoratori Portuali Trieste.
211
