Another all-day strike tomorrow, Thursday the 18th, at ARST, organized by the ORSA TPL union of drivers and tram drivers.
Twenty-four hours of work stoppage for all production units: automotive, railway, metro, and administrative services, and fixed installations.
A strong and determined protest in response to ARST's silence regarding the 21 issues raised by ORSA, and specifically to reject the company's proposal for a supplementary pay package for benefits and productivity bonuses. In order to avoid convening ORSA, ARST is clumsily attempting to remedy the situation by presenting unions, now dormant for decades, with a farcical supplementary pay proposal that it calls "epochal," but which in reality contains nothing compared to the past, explain Luigi Melis and Massimo Frau of the union's regional secretary.
ORSA TPL has long been calling for " sustainable workloads, a financial reassessment of company benefits that have been stagnant for decades, transparent rules on shifts , and a reorganization of the rules for managing part-time workers, currently the victim of high shift schedules."
Other critical issues reported by ORSA include: "Continued internal hostility, company benefits in need of reassessment, the creation of a computerized system for shift changes among workers that is currently managed with unclear logic, missing meal vouchers, and completely reassessed parameters that are not aligned with the current company-wide skillsets," Melis and Frau continue. Workers' priorities were ignored, but in return, "the director and his deputy received a substantial pay raise."
Disruptions are expected for residents across the island, with services cancelled, lines interrupted, and transfers canceled, in compliance with the minimum safety limits required by law.
While awaiting a meeting with ARST management and a response from the Regional Government, "we will not retreat an inch," they explain, "we will fight with all our strength, including through major protest initiatives. We will never accept a supplementary agreement that offends, humiliates, and divides staff. ARST must open a genuine discussion and dialogue with ORSA TPL, as other public transport companies have done, or it will have to answer to all of Sardinia for the discontent it is creating," Frau and Melis conclude.