"Recognizing port work as exhausting is a priorities". This was highlighted by Fit Cisl Liguria in on the occasion of the conference organized by the union in Genoa, at the Palazzo San Giorgio, entitled "Ports and work: the challenges of the change - Attracting new skills and recognising the profession as wearing", underlining how in the port of Genoa the age average of workers engaged on the docks continues to increase and a substantial part of the employees has now exceeded 50 years. A fact - noted the trade union organization - that highlights the need to recognise the particular burdensomeness of a profession characterized by shifts, work physical exertion and complex operating conditions.

"Port work - said Vincenzo Pagnotta, national secretary of Fit Cisl - it is not a job like the others. It takes place twenty-four hours a day, requires a high professionalism, involves important responsibilities and exposes to risks and conditions of particular burdensomeness. For This is what we continue to ask for with determination for recognition port work as a strenuous activity: it is not a question of A corporate claim, but a question of justice social. No further postponements are needed. The Fund - he added Pagnotta referring to the Accompanying Fund for the exodus for port workers which, however, is not yet operational - represents a fundamental tool to accompany with dignity workers in the last years of their working lives and, at the end of their at the same time, encourage generational turnover and the entry of new skills in the sector".

"In the reform of the ports being examined by Parliament - added Luca Maestripieri, general secretary of Cisl Liguria - yes often deal with very technical issues: investments, flows, assets organizational and budgets. Certainly important issues, but which from alone are not enough and we are not passionate about it because there is no nothing about the human factor. We need to bring work back to the center finally addressing all the questions of those who those makes them possible through their work and their daily sweat."

Mauro Scognamillo, general secretary of Fit Cisl Liguria, also stressed that "we can no longer postpone the recognition of port work as an activity wearing. All the social security tools that can help workers after a life spent on the quayside. At the same time, we denounce the need of large investments in specific training that allows port works, the entry of new professionals. We must ensure generational renewal and preserve that heritage of skills that make our Ligurian port system every day a great European and world excellence".

In this regard, Pagnotta observed that if "digitization, Automation and artificial intelligence represent a great opportunity", however, "change must be governed and accompanied through the participation of the workers and structural investments in training. The technology must be at the service of the person and contribute to improve safety, quality of work and competitiveness".

With regard to the evolution of port work, Andrea Appetecchia, head of the Logistics and Transport Observatory Isfort Goods, highlighting the importance of attracting new professionalism and ensure the necessary turnover generational project, recalled that "port workers in Italy from 1984 to today have gone from 21,000 to just over 16,000. The port in recent years - he specified - has changed, but the need for labor has not decreased, on the contrary it has grown. Shrinking the workforce in the face of growth the intensity of operations not yet facilitated technological innovation has in fact "worn out" the workers present in the port, who today rightly request to include it among the weary ones".