The interviews presented in this month’s Reportage were registered before the Ristori bis Decree was issued. The Decree shows a new list of businesses that will benefit from the non-repayable government grant. The relevant news is that the list includes the Ateco code 96.01.10 – that stands for Industrial laundries. After the first reading, we had the impression of facing a labyrinth of rules, references to other laws and regulations, exceptions and waivers. In such situations, the role of an interpreter becomes crucial to understand whether a business does actually make part of the beneficiary list or not. With the help of the Assosistema Association of the Confindustria (Italian Industrial Federation) we are going to clarify (through examples) the new regulation, especially articles 1, 6 and 11 of the Italian Ristori bis Decree
The images we see on the national news in TV and papers on Thursday 29 October showing the protest of restaurant owners of the day before, are quite disappointing and leave a bitter taste at the same time. Restaurant owners had set the Italian squares instead of tables, with their black humor clashing with the whiteness of the table cloths laying on the ground. Milan, Rome, Naples, Bologna, Turin, Palermo, Trieste – the music does not change. Actually, the table does not change. The protest where 1000 table covers were knocked over in the streets was meaningful in the current emergency state the sector is facing. The figures provided by Fipe – Confcommercio: 300 thousand work places at risk, 50 thousand companies are in a state of coma, 2.7 billion euros burnt as a result of the Prime Minister
Decree of the third week of October. Having a look at the sector of tourism, especially the hotels, the situation is no different. On the contrary to how it is perceived by those in “the control room”, the business chain does not end up with restaurants and hotels.
According to Assosistema-Confindustria, the volumes treated by industrial laundries operating within the hotel and restaurant market in September 2020 speak for themselves: in comparison to the same period of time the year before, linen rental and sanitizing registered -45% on average as far as hotels go, and -35% in case of restaurants with a further downward trend forecast for the month of October, if compared to September.
“We are quickly moving closer and closer – declares Marco Marchetti, the President of Assosistema Confindustria – towards the dramatic decrease that took place between February and May. This negative trend confirms the foreseen estimate that shows a decrease in the turnover by about 400 million euro and the reduction in the number of workplaces by about 5000 units at the end of 2020”. “It is enough to think about the big Cities of Art – continues Marchetti – where the lack of tourists from abroad, the lack of international groups visiting, no trade shows taking place nor business events, have led to the decrease in the activities of industrial laundries in September 2020 in comparison to the same period of time in 2019, as follows: Milan, Venice and Rome -72%, Naples -76% and Florence -70%. Yet, due to the new situation that is taking shape now, a further decrease has been foreseen, equal to -85/-95%.”
“I do not have much to say” starts Martino Pedersoli, the Gruppo Pedersoli based in Assago (MI) “because the situation is under the eyes of everyone, especially when we speak about industrial laundries working in the tourist sector. After 60 years of work, this situation could not have been foreseen. Our Group has been affected by it in a particular way because we work with the tourist sector in big cities, therefore we are talking here about the weakest link of the chain. I believe tourism will recover with time, following its pace, and the businesses that support it, like ours, too. Although the pandemic did not have any negative affect on business operations in January and February, all the other months were subjected to a decreasing trend. This is why, we are going to close the year with the turnover reduced by 80% if compared to last year’s. In my opinion, it has not been underlined strongly enough that our business is strictly connected to that of hotels’. As a matter of fact, hotels would close down without our services, therefore it is absolutely incomprehensible that the measures issued for hotels do not concern us as well”.
“We work with both hotels in big cities and those based in small towns and in the coutry-side, mainly in Lombardy” says Sandro Recalcati, the Lavanderia Lombarda Industriale Service based in Lentate sul Seveso (MB). “Hotels, restaurants and nursing houses are our core business. Do you want to know about our turnover starting from the beginning of the year? At the very moment, (26 October, Ed.) we are facing a decrease of 37% comparing to that same time last year, considering that before 23 February we had seen an increase of 2%. From the start of the pandemic for the next eight consecutive weeks, we had witnessed a decrease of 80%. Then, there was a slight recovery from the second half of May to the end of August, when we registered a fall of 25% (the small recovery was mainly due to strong Italian tourist activity happening at Lake Como, even if the usual Russian and American tourists did not come; also, the summer recovery took place thanks to tourists coming from the north of Europe who are particularly fascinated by Lake Maggiore). In September, there was a downward trend. I believe that this current mini-lockdown won’t last for one month only, however I don’t think it will bring great results. During the first lock-down, the Lombardy Region authorities took dry-cleaning shops for industrial laundries by mistake which forced us to close down. We had to turn to the Chief Magistrate to keep working. Those who took decisions for us, did not listen to us too much. As a matter of fact, it is true that the start of the business chain is not marked by the entrance door of a hotel and it does not really finish at a restaurant. The chain is actually much bigger and complex: it includes transport, travel agents, food delivery companies and, dulcis in fundo, laundries. Laundries, a segment that produces 13% of GDP has been locked down. Let us remember that no hotel is designed with an internal laundry anymore, therefore it is necessary to defend the professionality of laundries and protect the sector that has been supporting tourism for the last 50 years.
Luckily, our company also services nursing homes that constitutes only 20% of the turnover. Still, it allowed us to keep the machines running during the most difficult times, just like the one we are living now. It should have been crucial for the decision makers to become aware of the fact that laundry sector is an essential one, whereas instead what we witnessed constituted a basic incompetence. I would have liked somebody from the government, apart from rightly praising the doctors and nurses, to possibly mention the smallest thank you also to us, the industrial, heavy-duty laundries that have been keeping the nursing homes, the residential homes, hospitals and health care structures working for the last 8 months. During the first lockdown, industrial laundries working mainly with health care structures, managed to meet the demand supplying four times as many white coats within the conditions of job insecurity and high risks. In conclusion, I would like to have seen more competence, less approximation and more consideration, things that I actually did not notice, and I am not speaking about our sector only.”
“We mainly work with hotels and restaurants”, says Claudio Delbono from the Val Wash Laundry. “We have three factories, one of them is based in Temù in Valcamonica, the other one in Tirano, in the province of Sondrio, and the third one is near Varese, in a town called Gavirate. In April, May and June, the turnover fell by 90%. In August and September there was a significant recovery while in October we are in the darkness again. Let us not forget that the upcoming winter is not looking any good. Do you want to know how the government dealt with the emergency? During difficult times, like today, the actions should be based upon priorities: the main vehicle of the virus is the public means of transport in big cities, not schools nor restaurant, not hotels. I would expect to have witnessed a more efficacious actions taken by the Associations of the category, for instance, a national initiative against the disposable that was completely missing. It really was the crucial moment to carry out a campaign like this. Let us not forget
however, that some of the ASLs (TN: Local Health Authorities) actually recommended eliminating table cloths and favored the disposable products, completely unconcerned about damages such an approach could cause in terms of ecology.
“70% of our business activity is constituted by hotels based in Triveneto in the cities of art while the remaining 30% are the restaurants”, explains Stefano Gheno, the Lavanova Laundry based in Romano D’Ezzelino (VI). “The government cannot just distribute help to restaurants and hotels and forget about us. We are not waiting for a subsidy here but an aid to help save our businesses […]. Closing down restaurants, hotels and bars makes no sense after having forced them to invest in safety measures in order to strictly follow the safety protocols first. As an industrial laundry sector, we have received nothing so far. We are relying on our energy and strength right now. Actually, the real issue is that not all the businesses are solid enough to resist the economical pandemic together with the viral one. Also, the association of our business category should start raising the voice. In this time of the pandemic, where hygiene is a crucial element, why not push towards the obligatory certification in regard to the protocols contained by 14065 regulation (UNI EN 14065 – Textiles – Laundry processed textiles Biocontamination control system) also for laundries working with tourism? Our laundry has got the certification since 2009 as an extra. I truly do not understand why protocol 14065 should not be made obligatory for everyone at this point. We focused on the ecological compatibility of processes because of the respect we have for our clients and for our employees who treat the linen directly. The moment at which the pandemic started, there was a sharp rise in the number of requests for certified products. We have been ready for it for years but the real point is that the sensitivity and the widespread culture that would push in this direction are simply not there”.
“Our headquarters is based in Castellina di Soragna, the province of Parma but our sterilizing factories are present in many other places in Italy (especially in the central and northern part) as well as abroad”, says Luigino Zacconi, the Director of Laundry Production at the Lavanderia Servizi Italia. “Our core business is the washing and rental of flat linen, and medical staff workwear as well as the sterilization of surgeon instruments and textiles for surgery rooms”. Have we seen any negative effects in terms of the turnover since March until today? “Our workload has decreased and the way of working has changed at the same time. There has been a sharp increase in the processing of the tailored linen, especially medical staff uniforms, and a dramatic decrease in the flat linen treatment. All this is due to the fact that many hospital wards have been transformed into Covid wards. The cost of labour has risen because the maintenance of a work uniform takes more time if compared to the treatment of a flat linen piece. The latter has undergone a reduction following the decrease in the number of ordinary hospital patients.
We have also witnessed a significant decrease in surgery textiles because Covid emergency has led to the reduction of non-urgent surgeries, and consequently, to the decrease in the surgical instruments sterilization. It is worth mentioning that there has been an increase in the requests for sanitizing and washing of mattresses. Quite a change in the way of working, one would say. Let us not forget about the fact that we treat, through specific procedures, garments that have been declared as infected, and with the arrival of the pandemic, we have been processing every single piece as if infected.
Andrea Gozzi, the General Director at the Lavanderia Servizi Italia explains: “our sector does not benefit from the correct correlation between the type of work contracts and the real fulfillment of contractual obligations through services. Our work contracts are mainly based on an agreed fee with precise criteria: either the days of hospital stay or the number of medical operators we supply the uniforms to. The alteration of frequency of garments change contributes to the increase of the production costs that do not match with the driver of invoicing. The sanitary sector has recently witnessed a battle aiming at the transformation of the work contracts based on a fee according to the hospital stay or
the number of operators who wear the rented garments into work contracts based on the real number of uniform pieces supplied. That would mean a correct correlation between industrial costs and our profits. A work contract of this type would lessen the negative
effects we have been subjected to because of Covid”.
“We mainly deal with nursing homes and the residential care homes. We cover about 19 thousand beds processing linen in factories based in Emilia and Lombardy, while the third one, based in Friuli, deals with both nursing homes and hotels”, illustrates Donato Errico, the Domani Sereno Service Laundry based in Pessano con Bornago (MI). From February to March, there was an initial increase in the workload as the Covid patients had been moved from hospitals into nursing homes. Then, when it became clear that the closeness to the fragile patients was beginning to determine the collective death toll, there was a complete change of action: between April and July, the nursing homes did not accept any new arrivals, therefore the workload decreased. This conditioned a 30% loss for
our laundry. We thought that being an industrial laundry working with nursing homes would mean avoiding such losses anyhow. Yet, this sanitary crisis led to such a result. Halfway through the month of June, the waiting lists became open again. However, the waiting time became really long. Our laundry based in Milan (Pessano con Bornago) covers nursing
homes in Lombardy, Piedmont and Valle D’Aosta. The laundry based in Emilia (Reggio Emilia) works with structures based in Emilia Romagna, Marche and Tuscany. Finally, our laundry in Friuli (Gorizia) covers the north-east of the country and Slovenia. Such is the geo-placement of our Group. According to safety protocols for our employees, the sanitary structures we support are obliged to signal the number of Covid cases present in the structures. Let us not forget that only within one week (from 16 to 23 October), the
number of contamination cases that we were informed about, more than doubled reaching the figures of last March,” the unmistakable signal was later followed by the further increase in the number of cases during the first weeks of November.
This month’s Reportage, different from the others, is marked by the requests, present in the above interviews with the main players of the market, for the government to raise the awareness about the necessity to give support to this “long chain of businesses”.
The government has intervened by issuing the Ristori bis Decree. Will it be sufficient to contain the current crisis is yet to be verified …
by Marzio NAva
DETERGO NOVEMBER 2020
