Conca d’Oro announces its reopening. Tomorrow, 28 September, talks between trade unions and institutions

There are dark clouds over the future of the Conca d’Oro Shopping Centre in Palermo. Following the serious fire on 1 September, two shops have announced their definitive closure.

Monday 28 September, the meeting with the institutions

And yet, overall, the administrators of the owner company, Compal, which has been in judicial liquidation for some time, have announced that quite a few activities, around sixty out of a total of 100 according to local newspapers, will restart in October.

After the terrible blaze, probably caused by a short circuit, the complex—with 55.000 sq m of gross lettable area and having opened in March 2012—was in fact divided into colour-coded zones according to the damage: white zone, regularly accessible; yellow, premises subject to checks and inspections; red, currently inaccessible.

Two announced closures

However, some tenants have publicly announced that they will nevertheless pull down the shutters. A few days ago, Iqos (electronic cigarettes, a shop operated by Alphaomega) and, before it, Risparmio Casa, represented by Rica Gest. Too few to start sounding the alarm? It depends on your point of view...

In any event, the trade unions—Filcams Cgil, Fisascat Cisl and Uiltucs Sicilia—have called, for tomorrow, Monday 28 September, a protest demonstration and a meeting with the institutions.

The Risparmio Casa problem broke out last 18 September. On that occasion, the trade-union organisations met the owners and pointed out that 23 jobs were at risk.

The meeting with Rica Gest-Risparmio Casa

During the meeting, as stated in a note, the company said that, following the assessments carried out on the damage sustained by the outlet and given the impossibility of reopening it immediately, as the premises are located in the so-called “red zone”, it does not intend to continue its commercial activity at Conca d’Oro and will terminate the lease.

The workers’ organisations asked whether there was an intention to maintain a presence in the Palermo area by opening a new outlet, and Rica Gest–Risparmio Casa answered in the affirmative, while specifying that any opening would not take place immediately.

Precisely in order to safeguard employment during the period required to identify a new premises, Filcams Cgil, Fisascat Cisl and Uiltucs then put forward the request to make use of social safety-net measures, so as to guarantee income and continuity of employment.

The company, however, proposed, as an alternative, the possibility of relocating the 23 people to other outlets across the country, wherever positions were available.

A wider crisis?

“The Conca d’Oro fire cannot and must not be paid for by the workers. We cannot accept that an event for which these people bear no responsibility should result in the loss of their jobs and income for 23 families,” declared Giuseppa Aiello, general secretary of Filcams Cgil Palermo, Stefano Spitalieri, general secretary of Fisascat Cisl, and Ida Saja, general secretary of Uiltucs Sicilia.

But the concern of the trade-union organisations, it is further stated, goes well beyond the specific dispute. “We fear that the one involving Risparmio Casa (and then Iqos, ed. note)could be just one of the first closure decisions among the businesses affected by the fire. Other outlets have suffered the consequences of what happened, and we cannot wait for further businesses, one after another, to announce their decision not to reopen. If this were to happen, we would no longer be talking about the dispute involving 23 workers, but about a much wider employment crisis.”

FLOOR PLAN OF THE CONCA D'ORO SHOPPING CENTRE

This article was translated from the original Italian version with the assistance of artificial intelligence. In case of discrepancies, please refer to the original Italian version.