06-12-2016

AlmavivA Contact: the trade unions are opposed to the innovative proposal. They say no to an inadequate and improper culture of subsidy

Rome, 6 December 2016 – The reorganization plan launched by AlmavivA Contact on 5 October last is an unavoidable and necessary responsibility for protecting the activities of the Company and safeguarding employment continuity.

The agreement concluded last May between AlmavivA Contact, the unions and the institutions provided for a solidarity contract for a period of six months, defined stringent actions for enabling the Company to recover its competitive capacity, through measures for structurally reforming the Call Center sector, the shared conviction being that only by effectively changing the framework and the market rules could enable an alternative process to reorganization.

Despite the attention with which the Government has followed the developments in the agreement, the actual results have highlighted the gradual further worsening of the Company’s revenue and profit, with monthly losses in excess of those that had warranted the first reorganization project, which was then withdrawn last March.

In September 2016, AlmavivA Contact recorded a 50% drop in its turnover, totaling 100 million euros, having kept on its 9,000 strong workforce, 8,000 of which are permanent employees, despite the crisis in this sector, which has already forced 15 companies to close down in the space of just 18 months. Average monthly losses in the production sites of Rome and Naples alone, in the period following the agreement, totaled 1.2 million euros, with revenues of 2.3 million, despite the application of social shock absorbers.

AlmavivA Contact, unlike the unions, has loyally applied the terms of the agreement, with regard to both its obligations, which it has fully complied with – despite the significant economic and financial cost entailed – and the duration.

Faced with the institutional initiatives aimed at reordering the sector and enforcing compliance with the rules governing the market, AlmavivA Contact has proposed to the parties to adopt a roadmap for the Company that can restore its economic balance, as well as stable recovery measures, based on the actions needed to tackle the structural factors of the crisis.

After months of substantial indifference, of their refusal to follow up on the commitments that had been formally agreed to, of distorted portrayals to the workers of the Company’s proposals, the Trade Unions’ response was a prejudicial hostility towards any agreement or even discussion, despite having adopted other positions, over the years, with competitor companies, accompanied with the usual request for an aid-based approach to the crisis.

This “benefits culture” is inadequate to address the structural conditions of AlmavivA Contact, as well as being irreconcilable with the dimensions of the crisis and misleading with regard to the workers’ expectations, and providing for an improper use of the social shock absorbers available to the sector.

The only option open to AlmavivA Contact now is to acknowledge the Unions’ firm and absolute refusal of and therefore scrap the roadmap presented by us.