All Conad’s maneuvers between Legacoop and Confcommercio
The latest moves by Pugliese (Conad) analyzed by Mario Sassi
Fabrizio Palenzona has therefore taken a step back. With elegance and without fanfare he left the vice-presidency of Confcommercio. The Confederation's Bureau thus lost one of the few leaders who had put himself out there to revive it. In his opinion, the political quality and initiative expressed are too slow, cumbersome and inconclusive.
The leading team of the "largest confederation in Europe" in addition to Carlo Sangalli and Lino Stoppani of FIPE, thus suddenly found itself with the President of Reggio Emilia Donatella Prampolini, the smallest association in Emilia Romagna, the South Tyrolean Manfred Pinzger, the president of Sondrio Loretta Credaro, the president of Bari, Alessandro Ambrosi and that of Udine, Giovanni da Pozzo. To complete the team, Patrizia di Dio from Palermo and a former Forza Italia MEP Riccardo Garosci. A team too light to face the championship in the top flight.
The big guns, either they never went in or they are all out. There is neither the association of Bologna nor that of Rimini to represent Emilia, there is neither Veneto nor Piedmont nor Tuscany. There is neither the President of Federalberghi nor that of Federmoda. Involved only a few second lines around the stainless President of Milan. Fabrizio Palenzona's exit was such a bad blow. It is useless to go around it.
For this reason he may have surprised the almost simultaneous arrival of Francesco Pugliese from Conad. I had anticipated it on the blog about a month ago . Certainly an important entry and also a significant one. Pugliese among other things remains in Legacoop while simultaneously assuming the vice-presidency of Confcommercio. Personally, I find it a choice that looks at the perspective of the entire sector. Other companies are at the same time in formally competing confederations or federations. Both in the Coop world and in the private sector. Some because they find commercial employment contracts more convenient than those of industry, others the services offered by the bilateral system, others by tradition. Still others, and I think this is the reason that pushed Conad more than others, to build bridges instead of walls.
The entire representation must redefine its associative and initiative perimeters suitable for the new century. The service sector will have to do even more. In trade, between old and new CCNL signatories and organized presences, the list is particularly long. It is absolutely necessary to prune it.
Let us not forget that the scourge of contractual dumping has spread since various associative proposals have even modeled themselves around individual brands or territories, allowing companies to join freely while maintaining their formal registration even with the most representative ones. And the latter have been careful not to intervene decisively.
If the confederation of piazza Belli with the entry of Conad decides to try to undertake to mend and bring to synthesis the world of distribution in view of a real certification of the weight of representation, it is certainly a decision to be welcomed positively. Francesco Pugliese is certainly one of the most suitable people.
It has been a short time since the entire agri-food chain, overcoming divisions and jealousies, shared a document asking President Draghi for a meeting on the risks of a possible resumption of inflation. The lack of answers must have made everyone understand that it is no longer enough to sign common documents in times of PNRR. It is necessary to know how to go further. Meanwhile, by putting the needs of businesses in common and overcoming the modest associative logic and the jealousies that derive from it. If anything, it will be necessary to find a way to allow the most representative spaces and contributions which, however, must be synthesized. So Confcommercio is a good forum.
It is certainly not his best moment for the overall state of the Confederation otherwise we would not have had the resignation of Fabrizio Palenzona but Confcommercio is certainly the one potentially more capable than others of building a constructive institutional dialogue. The diatribes between large and small traders are linked to a season that is behind us as well as the controversies between associations. The shared agreement on Sunday work and the substantial end of hostilities in the territories indicate the desire to turn the page also because today the real confrontation is on the rules of the game that must apply to all the players in the distribution. Also for those who operate upstream bypassing the system through the network and a relatively loose tax system.
The management of the CCNL and the reunification of the entire national trade represent in themselves a decisive challenge. The first has been at the stake for two years and I think just any signature is no longer enough. It must be rethought in depth taking into account that the ongoing crumbling caused by the presence of ferocious dumping on contractual costs does not produce anything good for anyone as well as the stalemate induced by the competition with Federdistribuzione. The latter is equally in trouble. The change at the top did not produce greater leadership. Certainly not because of the quality of the people chosen but because the pandemic, the NRP and the general context have changed the balance of the system and the weights necessary to be interlocutors.
I would add that even that part of the trade union that has not fully understood the scope of the Auchan operation, the context that generated it and the heavy reorganization underway throughout the sector risks finding itself displaced on the national contractual table where the delay in time runs the risk of adding a delay in processing the contents and evolution of the sector on the agenda today. Delays that should be quickly recovered. Managing the CCNL essentially means this. Taking into account that the social climate is changing everywhere.
Just as working to reunify the trade sector means not having prejudices either towards the cooperative world (and here the role maintained by Francesco Pugliese can play in favor) or towards other large and small companies that must be able to find themselves in a context of equal dignity being able to distinguish the confederal role of synthesis and protection of the general interests of the sector from that of the leader of the largest brand in the country who must necessarily protect its own. I remain personally convinced that Confcommercio is stalled today because it is unable to get out of an outdated organizational scheme and a substantial difficulty in developing an adequate strategy. The role of the trade federations is ancillary while the territorial associations linked to the supply of services that are now largely obsolete risk being reduced to proselytizing spaces.
This is weighed down by the slowness of a national leadership group that is too inward-looking. The positive element is that a large organization is always able to find the energy to restart. We will see if this need for renewal and relaunch will prevail or not over individual personal stories and strategies.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/tutte-le-manovre-di-conad-fra-legacoop-e-confcommercio/ on Sun, 05 Dec 2021 14:58:30 +0000.