La nostra redazione fa suo l’appello del SI Cobas di Napoli, Caserta, Salerno a dare avvio ad una campagna nazionale e internazionale di solidarietà per imporre la revoca del licenziamento di rappresaglia di Ciccio Collina, delegato per la sicurezza del SI Cobas, e di altri due licenziamenti di rappresaglia attuati nel porto di Napoli dall’impresa De Luca. (Red.)

FIRED FOR CHALLENGING WORKPLACE SAFETY

On Tuesday morning, SI Cobas was protesting outside the gates of the Port of Salerno, along with those fired from De Luca and dozens of others in solidarity following the two-hour strike called at Logiport (a Grimaldi Group terminal) against the arbitrary suspension of Ciccio. Ciccio has been a SI Cobas worker at the Grimaldi Group terminal for years, a front-line worker defending workers’ rights at the Salerno port for decades, and for the past two years, a front-line worker in strikes and solidarity actions against the genocide of the Palestinian people and against arms trafficking to Israel through the Port of Salerno!

A few minutes after the strike ended, we learned that the disciplinary proceedings against Ciccio had concluded with his dismissal: a dismissal that was the result of a set-up aimed solely at stifling union activity and the battles waged by SI Cobas in defense of dignity, safety, and health in the workplace.

 What are the “serious allegations” that led to Collina’s dismissal without notice?

According to the formality of the disciplinary charge, his crime is… fulfilling his union representative duties, acting as an intermediary between the union and another worker, a member of SI Cobas. The worker had publicly reported pressure from Logiport to force him to revoke his union membership in exchange for financial benefits and the cancellation of the disciplinary measures against him. However, after appealing his sanction to the Salerno ITL, he retracted his accusations against the company, evidently after being put “under the grill” under threat of dismissal.  Despite presenting Logiport with irrefutable evidence of Ciccio’s innocence in these accusations and his role as a mere spokesperson for the worker’s (initial) wishes, the employers proceeded with the dismissal anyway, while “rewarding” the stone-thrower with a return to work and then hiding his hand…

 But in reality, this petty war between the poor, artfully fueled by Logiport and the Grimaldi group, had only one purpose: to carry out the most classic “cross-party vendetta” against our union. After months of listening to its members’ complaints, reports, and concerns about the multiple and repeated violations of safety regulations, faced with the company’s total indifference, the union was forced to report these serious omissions to the competent authorities, who are currently conducting a detailed and thorough investigation.

The bottom line is this: if you fight for the health of your colleagues, to prevent workplace deaths and accidents, and to break the wall of silence surrounding the lack of safety at ports, they’ll fire you!

Anyone who works in ports knows that for most companies, safety is merely an unnecessary burden, a simple “cost to be reduced,” even more so than wages themselves. This is due to the lack of controls, the absence and/or complicity of the authorities responsible for this (Adsp), the scarcity of resources and equipment available to the Local Health Authority (ASL) and the ITL (Italian Port Authority), and above all, the “on-call” work, the workloads and infernal pace imposed on workers who are forced to sacrifice their physical and mental well-being in exchange for a few crumbs or simply to avoid retaliation…

This is the context, the result of decades of cuts and safe-conducts, which produces over 3 deaths and thousands of workplace accidents every day: numbers that now represent little more than a mere statistic, worthy at most of a few articles in a local newspaper and the macabre ritual of “crocodile-tearing” strikes…

As SI Cobas, we have always emphasized our firm opposition to this carousel of silence and  Hypocrisy, asserting the centrality and mandatory nature of regulations protecting the safety, health, and lives of workers: safeguards we have always refused to “turn a blind eye” to, and which, for us, certainly cannot be “monetized,” as the bosses are now accustomed to doing even in union negotiations… Ciccio Collina today finds himself paying a heavy price for the consistency and incorruptibility born of the unwavering belief that the health and safety of dockworkers comes first!

 But the bosses should be well aware that we will certainly not stop in the face of this despicable retaliation!

On Friday, May 29th, during the national general strike of base unions, we will be in the square at the Port of Naples to denounce how the dismissal of Ciccio and the two De Luca workers is anything but a disciplinary matter, but rather the result of this veritable disgrace to rights at terminals in Campania and Italy. And we will continue to fight tirelessly to put an end to this system of exploitation and blackmail!

Now more than ever, we demand a stand and a true assumption of responsibility from the Port Authority, the Prefectures of Naples and Salerno, the municipal administrations, and the Campania Region.

 JOBS ARE NOT TO BE TOUCHED: WE WILL DEFEND THEM WITH STRUGGLE!

IMMEDIATE REINSTATEMENT FOR CICCIO COLLINA AND FOR THOSE FIRED AT DE LUCA!