“Maintaining employment levels in the port is a priority for us. Any strategic operation designed to strengthen the port’s competitiveness cannot ignore this.”
In his first port partnership body meeting, Port Network Authority (PNA) Special Commissioner Davide Gariglio laid down a number of priorities against a backdrop of uncertainty in the port’s operational set up due to the precarious status of LTM, a terminal company part of the Moby group in charge of handling Ro/Ro traffic at Livorno port’s Darsena n.1 – which had announced its intention not to renew its port lease expiring in December 2025, prompting the PNA to initiate the procedure to re-allocate the area.
“When talking about LTM in terms of employment profiles, you have to start from the state property issue. It’s a matter of precious areas being left available in the port, which are even more important particularly in view of what is envisaged for the future of our port of call,” Mr. Gariglio pointed out , at the meeting accompanied By PNA state property manager, Fabrizio Marilli.
“The new call for tenders that we are preparing for allocating the new concession,’ he added, “should allow us to acquire new development opportunities in terms of traffic, guaranteeing LTM ‘s workers are integrated into a new terminal set up.”
To this end, Mr. Gariglio announced that, as per Ministerial Decree 202/2022, the Authority is about to promote a market consultation to define the needs, characteristics and potential of the port areas to be leased out.
At the same time, the PNA will continue working on the strategic issue of redefining port work organization models.
The most important issue on the cards is the future for ALP, the sole temporary manpower agency in the port under Article 17 of Law No. 84/1994.
“Devising a process to boost the number of members of our temporary manpower agency is a priority. It’s very small compared to the port’s total workforce,” Gariglio explained, adding that “this is the direction our PNA is following. We hope to proceed by working with the Ministry on this.”
The deadline proposed by the port administration for solving both issues – the state property one with the reallocation of the LTM concession, and the labour issue concerning the authorization of the temporary port manpower’s workforce – has been set for 31st December.
At the end of the meeting, the Port Network Authority‘s Special Commissioner acknowledged that the discussion with the operators in the Port Partnership Body had been extremely fruitful: “I found our port operators be very much in line on the issues to be addressed and the strategy outlined by the Authority,” he said.
Translation by Giles Foster