Adecco hires or fires? The strange case of the Modis collapse in Milan

48 redundancies in companies linked to the temporary group. Fiom Cgil: 'Properties take action, and let's ask ourselves about the change in administration agencies'

MILAN – What happens if a temporary work administration company, therefore a company created to encourage placement, finds itself managing an internal dismissal of 48 workers indirectly linked to it? The answer is not simple, but the case of Modis Italia srl, an IT consultancy company born under IBM and ended up under Adecco through Akkodis, is very similar, as the unions observe, to the game of Chinese boxes.

In the overall interlocking framework, the actual collapse is that of Modis Italia, which after going into liquidation decided on the collective dismissal of 48 workers, “of which we also know about ten more or less severely disabled workers “, as the representative of the Milanese Fiom Giorgio Pontarollo explains to ‘Dire’. The acronyms ask that Adecco and its subsidiary Akkodis actively intervene to arrive at a positive solution for the workers involved, without escaping their responsibilities. “Adecco must concretely take charge of its social responsibilities – insists Pontarollo – because if a supply company becomes to all intents and purposes directly a business and no longer intermediates employment contracts but directly manages the employment relationships of companies >, must then be able to adequately manage these disputes, having all the ability, because this is their peculiarity, to offer relocations suited to the skills and possible compensation to those who no longer have alternatives”.

The reality is that to date the unions have only interacted with Modis Italia and the bankruptcy trustees, who have rejected hypotheses of adequate retirement support, responding with a proposal deemed “inadmissible” by the unions. “Modis essentially sells IT skills, some orders are still active, so there are rumors that a third company will take over and will offer these workers to continue working for the same ones customers but most likely having to reduce their salary: this – underlines Pontarollo – is another thing that Fiom has rejected”.

In the meantime, the workers, gathered in an assembly, have decided on a state of permanent agitation and reserve the right to plan other forms of mobilization if during the next meeting to be held on Tuesday 11 June the ownership it will not be concretely activated. So will Adecco, a company created to find work, be able to keep that of ‘its’ employees? Modis, as the Fiom trade unionist explains, “comes from the sale of a business branch of IBM which was then contested”, the fact is that it was then merged with Akkodis (another consultancy company), and ended up in fact being under the Adecco property. “We are also interested in underlining the fact that here there is a change of skin on the part of the administration companies – specifies Pontarollo – who, also enjoying a privileged observatory, directly operate a business, but if the results are these operations…” .