Translated automatically by AI from the Italian original.
MATERA / ROME – A race against time that risks turning into an employment tragedy for Basilicata. The regional secretariats of the sector unions – SLC-CGIL, FISTEL-CISL, UILFPC-UIL and UGL Telecomunicazioni – have issued a united, urgent alarm over the CallMat dispute in Matera: with fewer than ten days until the 1 November deadline, around 350 workers face the formal issue of redundancy notices unless a rescue industrial plan and a binding framework agreement are reached.
Despite the verbal openings noted in recent days and the stated willingness of the client TIM to assign new volumes of work, the unions denounce the total absence of written guarantees and the company’s silence in response to requests for an urgent meeting.
Unions: “MIMIT must bring forward the emergency roundtable; no to passive shock absorbers”
In a joint statement signed by the regional secretaries Anna Russelli, Vincenzo Piccinni, Giovanni Letterelli and Pino Giordano, the social partners urge the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy not to wait for the originally scheduled date of 12 November:
“Today is 22 October and there is still no written agreement to save the 350 jobs at CallMat in Matera – Russelli, Piccinni, Letterelli and Giordano jointly declare –. The company has confirmed that redundancies will begin on 1 November and our request for a meeting has gone unanswered. It is unacceptable to leave hundreds of families in the abyss. We are calling on MIMIT to convene an extraordinary roundtable immediately: we do not want to steer 350 people towards unemployment or social safety nets; we want to save production and jobs in Matera”.
Industrial issues with TIM and legal checks on the contract
The unions are involving both the national client and the local institutions (the government and the Basilicata region), announcing action on several fronts:
- Demands to TIM: Clarify where the operational volumes historically handled at the Matera site will go and freeze CallMat’s traffic quotas in line with AGCOM regulations;
- Legal action: Union legal teams are examining the organisation of work to assess any instances of illegal supply of labour in the execution of the contract;
- Moral support: In recent days the dispute has also won the solidarity of the local Church, following a meeting between worker representatives and the Bishop of Matera, Monsignor Benoni Ambarus.
“The union’s position is clear – the workers’ representatives conclude –: CallMat must stay in Matera with all its staff. If immediate answers and written commitments are not forthcoming, the mobilisation will intensify on every front”.
