Plastic rubber, turnover up 10% to 26 billion but the situation is worrying

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For the Plastic Rubber industries it is «a positive moment. In 2022, turnover is up 10% on 2021 and reached 25.9 billion euros>. And there is satisfaction with the “recently approved renewal of the contract quickly and with a growing membership base”, says Marco Do, president of the industry federation, on the occasion of the assembly at the Milan Polytechnic, with the participation, among others, by Livio Beghini, President of Assogomma and Marco Bergaglio, President of Unionplast, Ernesto Marzano (Vice President of Industrial Relations of the Plastic Rubber Federation) Pierangelo Albini (Head of Labour, Welfare and Human Capital of Confindustria), the general secretaries of Filctem, Marco Falcinelli, Femca, Nora Garofalo and Uiltec, Daniela Piras. To close the day, the vice president for Labor and Industrial Relations of Confindustria, Maurizio Stirpe.

The decline in margins

In this important phase of growth, however, there are sore points. It is in fact a phase «marked by numerous difficulties such as the increase in the costs of raw materials, energy and logistics, connected to the war scenario and the persistence of the pandemic – continues Do -. Specifically, raw materials increased year-on-year by 40%, with peaks even exceeding 100%». All elements that have caused a drop in margins

The growth of the two sectors

The rubber sector was most affected, where turnover is estimated to grow by around 10%, thus going from 4.5 billion to 5 billion euro, but margins are reduced. For the first transformation plastics sector, on the other hand, turnover in the last year amounted to 20.9 billion euros, with an increase of 10.4% compared to 2021, also with compressed margins. «Rubber and plastic products are structural for sectors such as food, agriculture, automotive, transport in general, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, construction, just to mention the main ones. Our primary objective remains that of being alongside and supporting companies in the two sectors by offering a wide range of services and consultancy, which our member companies show they appreciate, as demonstrated by the increase in the membership base».

The renewal of the contract

The employees who total 140,000 and who have recently seen the renewal of the national collective labor agreement are stable. Despite the chiaroscuro context, the Plastic Rubber companies have recently renewed the contract, «achieved in a short time and this is a particularly important result that underlines the effort and change of pace of the rubber and plastic companies in balancing the cost of work with salary treatments,” says Do. In particular in the TEC, the overall economic treatment «we have consolidated the supplementary health welfare for all 140,000 employees, in order to give stable support to the health of our workers. It is a contract that goes in the direction of economic and social sustainability, in addition to the environmental one in which our companies have been committed for some time”.