Unanimous ok of the Port Committee of Gioia Tauro to the establishment of the Agency for port work

The Port Committee of Gioia Tauro has unanimously approved the resolution providing for the establishment of the Agency of administration of port work and for qualification professional, agency whose creation has been authorized at the end of last year by the government for the ports of Gioia Tauro and of Taranto who have been affected by the crisis of activity of transhipment, an activity that in the Calabrian port of call is carried out by the terminalista company Medcenter Container Terminal (MCT) of the Contship Italia group ( of 23 December 2016).

The new Agency will bring together the workers made redundant by the terminal companies operating pursuant to art. 18 of the law 84/94, authorized to handle containers, which, on the date of 27 July 2016, benefited from income support schemes in the forms of social safety nets.

In accordance with the provisions of current legislation, the Agency of three-year duration with public participation, will be promoted and managed by the Port System Authority, the body that is was called to take over from the Port Authority and that, in the case of the port of Gioia Tauro, it was called Authority of Harbour System of the Strait and under whose jurisdiction they are included, in addition to the port of Gioiese, the ports of call of Crotone (old and new port), Corigliano Calabro, Taureana di Palmi, Villa San Giovanni, Vibo Valentia, Reggio Calabria, Messina, Milazzo and Tremestieri.

The Agency will have the task of supporting the placement professional of workers registered on its list, including through vocational training which will be defined in function of economic realities and industrial developments that will affect the port area of Gioia Tauro.

Satisfaction with the green light for the measure was manifested by the extraordinary commissioner of the port authority, Andrea Agostinelli, who stressed the importance of the moment highlighting how "the difficult path that led to this resolution will be completely useless if the Authority Port and other interested bodies will not devote all their energy the adoption of courageous choices for the productive relaunch of the port and "over time" for the resorption of redundancies'.

The port authority explained that the resolution comes to conclusion of an intense work of study, analysis and comparison with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport that has seen, last week, the adoption by the MIT of the formal agreement the establishment of the Port Agency within the meaning of Article 4 of the Decree Law 243 of 2016 converted into Law 18/2017.

The body has specified that the institution of the Agency finds foundation in Gioia Tauro as the port infrastructure has all the specific characteristics required by the legislation in force in the sector, and, in particular, the establishment of the Agency port responds to the need to support employment, accompanied by processes of industrial reconversion, in a reality port, such as that of Gioia Tauro, where 80% of the container handling takes place in transhipment mode. The goal - recalled the authority - is to avoid serious damage to the operation and efficiency of the airport that, for at least five years, has worked in a state of crisis.