Costa’s latest move: new investments in Italy

Rome - It is time for an entirely new phase in the negotiations over the future of 160 Genoese Costa Cruises workers who will suffer the impact of the Hamburg transfer. Just before eleven o’clock yesterday morning, Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi met in private, in his office at the Ministry, with the company’s C.E.O. Michael Thamm. Half an hour of face to face talks to clarify some points, and then the two went into a longer meeting between the company and local government organisations. On one side of the table, besides Costa’s top management, there was also the former president of Fincantieri, Corrado Antonini, who has become a super-consultant to Carnival. On the other side were the representatives of the local organisations.

Thamm smiled because he knew that the open meeting with the government and the institutions would be positive, and he had already spoken with Burlando about this point at an informal dinner just before the summons to Rome. The transfers are confirmed, but “with the knowledge that they are part of a plan that will provide for strong investments in Italy and Genoa from Costa,” Lupi explained. Port Authority President Merlo explained the reasoning to the assembled: “Costa is going to Germany because it has found a reliable partner in Lufthansa Technik, the German airline company that handles maintenance among other things. And with them, Carnival plans to create a global centre of excellence in Hamburg. Genoa must do the same, at two levels: the first is to build on what already exists here, and the second is to make the most of Genoa’s strengths.”

Costa may be offered a part in the privatisation of Genoa’s airport. It is just a idea, but in the coming weeks, it could just as well be declined. So to focus on Genoa’s greatest strengths, taking inspiration from developments at Lufthansa: “Why don’t we work with our own companies, for example IIT and RINA?” Merlo asked at the meeting, adding that in the plan to reorganise Italian ports that is being debated, requirements could be made of the company. Thamm emphasised and promised two points: the first, as anticipated in yesterday’s interview with Il Secolo XIX-the MediTelegraph, was that, “The head, heart and soul of the company will remain in Genoa and in Italy,” and he gave a foretaste of Costa’s three-year investment plan, “in which there will be investments for the Italian market.”

And this is why Lupi expects another confrontation in a month when the company will release figures for its investment plans in Italy and Genoa. But the vision for the future depends on the solution to the urgent problems of the present. Of the 161 workers who will be affected by the transfers, local institutions will take care of them (“we will go by the union route,” said Genoa’s Mayor Doria) and Burlando will make his presence known in the negotiations between the company and the unions: “We will discuss the plan and we will see how far down the number can go and how many existing jobs we can defend, but we must also understand how [the company] can grow at the same time.”

The plan would follow a scheme to reduce the number of Costa employees who are affected by the reorganisation. The company should show openness and transfers should be mainly voluntary, after substantial mediation, favouring young employees and then using a double strategy: early retirement on one hand, and relocation to other departments and other positions in which development is planned, on the other hand. This is why the salvation of the employees affected by the transfers will require more than just development plans: “We are an integral part of the Italian economy. We are the only Italian company, the only one that flies the Italian flag and we are the only ones who pay taxes in Italy. We have ambitious growth plans and the local economy and the Italian economy will benefit,” Thamm explained.

The government has committed itself to supporting this process and for the moment Costa has made two requests that could become part of the negotiation. The first is about Venice, where the government has yet to decide how to resolve the issue of docking large cruise ships without them passing in front of the Piazza San Marco. The second request is about training: at the same time, Costa will invest in the facility in Arenzano di Villa Figoli, where a Higher Technical Institute will be created specialising in hospitality for cruise ships. Meanwhile outside, a delegation of workers that arrived by train was waiting for the results of the meeting, wearing t-shirts that read, “Costa Won’t Leave Genoa.”