I gas stations they declare a maxi strike of ten days against the changes that - second the draft circulated in the last few hours - the Government would have brought fuel liberalizations to the decree. The trade unions Faib Confesercenti and Fegica Cisl "the immediate state of unrest and the closure of the road and motorway systems due to strike" due to the "reverse of the Executive which, on liberalisations, capitulated to the oilmen”. The dates of the lockout will be indicated "if and as soon as the draft decrees circulated in these hours should find confirmation".
The decree, which will be approved tomorrow by the Council of Ministers, should contain some last minute fixes. Two above all: the end of the exclusivity for refueling would be granted only to operators who are simultaneously owners of the plants, while the complete deregulation could be limited only to plants outside urban centres.
Furthermore, it seems that the redemption of the ownership of the distribution systems against compensation for the current owners is still uncertain. If all this were true, according to the unions, "the fuel distribution sector would essentially be canceled by the decree".
According to the managers, there will be “no 'multi-brand' facilities, as the Antitrust had recently requested. No freedom for managers to get supplies on the free market at the most convenient conditions in order to be able to give Italian motorists lower fuel prices".
“The government limits itself to throwing the wool over the eyes of public opinion by 'freeing' only those who are already free, i.e. the owners of the plants: in the end, the provision does not concern more than 500 plants out of 25.000. For the rest, the oil companies' control over the entire supply chain, 'from the cradle to the grave', which allows them to maintain the highest prices in Europe in Italy, is definitively completed with an unexpected gift: each company will be able to set the contractual conditions that he wants, with every single gas station attendant, without any protection, no bargaining, no collective mediation”, explains a note from Fegica and Faib.
“It emerges clearly – they add – also through the possibility given to oilmen to expel the managers and make plants completely selfised, the will to punish an entire category of workers, owners of small businesses, for the simple fact of having dared to support the true liberalization of sector, challenging the powers that be”.
