economic emergency
April 14, 2021 – 08:35
Different categories, the same certainty: these supports alone cannot be enough to compensate for months without work
of Mauro Bonciani, Antonio Passanese, Edoardo Semmola
Struggling with uncertainty for a year. Without knowing when, how and if to work. When the refreshments arrive. Forced to put employees on layoffs or not to call seasonal workers. To deal with rents, taxes, bills, while the daily proceeds arrive with a dropper or just aren’t there. Six “normal” stories, men and women struggling with the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic and which has affected merchants, business managers, VAT numbers, in cities as well as in villages. Stories that also tell the bureaucracy to be faced, however insufficient aid – no one got from the state more than 10% of what they lost -, of the will not to give up. 2021 which risks being worse than 2020, where “at least the first two months were normal and we worked in the summer”. And while waiting for the new refreshment points, the accounts say everything as explained by Cna: “A costume jewelery in the center of Florence had about 8,300 euros of refreshments compared to 60 thousand euros of losses in 2020, a car rental compared to 300 thousand euros in less will have 15 thousand euros, a restorer who has lost 29% of the turnover will have 6,400 euros of refreshments ».
The restaurant
Just over four months of work in 2020 and just one month and 13 days in 2021. “We are able to go on and keep it open for delivery and takeaway only because our restaurant is family-run”, explains Andrea Bartarelli, one of the owners of the historic Florentine trattoria a stone’s throw from Piazza Santo Spirito, La Casalinga. But the crisis and the closures have forced the entrepreneur to lay off twelve out of 16 employees at zero hours. And the aid? In 2020 Andrea received in two installments of 14 thousand euros the refreshments of the Conte government but as regards the regional calls, “even if we participate”, he judges the resources allocated so small “that the crumbs will reach us”. Fortunately, at the beginning of the pandemic, La Casalinga was able to renegotiate the rent but now “we are again in negotiations”. “I’d like to first try to understand what will happen, when we will reopen and for how long. Why takeout and delivery are bad. And it couldn’t have been otherwise in a neighborhood completely emptied of residents and businesses ». A breath of fresh air, for the owners of the restaurant, came thanks to the measures implemented by the Municipality: “These are small actions, such as the cancellation of the tax on public land, the reduction of the Tari and the postponement of tax payments , who in any case are helping us ».
The hairdresser
“Only one thousand euros of refreshments in a year and a half of the pandemic.” Giovanni Macaluso is a hairdresser at the Due Strade and has received “only alms” from the government, “but fortunately I have a pension and this is the reason why they gave me less, but if I hadn’t had a pension, I wouldn’t have made it. “. In any case, he adds, “the money may not be enough to pay the rent, the bills and everything else, these are very hard times”. With the Red Zone his shop is closed, and even the accounts are likely to go red. “The work of us hairdressers, even when we can stay open, has dropped by 35 percent, because so many people are afraid of being infected, many cut their hair themselves and others resort to squatters who go home”. “I take advantage of these days to put the shop back in order, and I dedicate myself to the small vegetable garden that I have created in front of my house”. Reopen anyway? Macaluso is against: “I understand anger and discomfort, but opening against the law seems too risky to me, I don’t want to take unnecessary fines and I respect the rules.”
The gym
«The bill is easy. In 2021 we never opened, last year we were closed for six months and so far I have had 9 thousand euros of refreshments, compared to a rent that we pay every month of 7 thousand euros “. Mauro Lassi is the administrator of the Palagym fitness center in Prato, which has two thousand members and which pre-pandemic collected 500 / thousand euros a day. «Instead we found ourselves collecting € 22 – continues Lassi – and we have all employees on layoffs. Now we have done do and go for 2 thousand euros from the regional call and a thousand from the municipality, which has also applied discounts on the Tari, but for us they have meant just 600 euros less, while fixed costs continue ». Like other entrepreneurs in the sector, Palgym has seen important adaptation works for the anti Covid rules: “We spent about 30 thousand euros, for interventions on changing rooms, swimming pools, ventilation systems, the carabinieri and the Local Health Authority came for checks and that was all in good standing, and then they pointed to us as “infectors”, they made us shut down, when there has been no case of contagion here ». The landlord has granted a retouch at the bottom of the rent, but Lassi wants to work. “It’s hard, really hard. We need certainties about the reopening. How long can we continue to spend money, to burn money. And if I have to get into debt, I won’t reopen.
He pub
His is a family-run pub in Certaldo, but he has not renewed the fixed-term contracts. “How did I do it? There were few more penalized than us – says Franco Brogi – and in practice we only worked four months, with in this 2021 also the local Red Zone of the Empoli area which arrived before the Red Zone for Tuscany. It is right to protect health, but we have not received a single euro, neither in Red nor in Orange, despite the fact that the government had said the opposite ». Brogi does not see everything black – “after the first time, a bit complex, the state refreshments arrived directly on the current account within the promised time, thanks to the Revenue Agency, and there was a reduction in some municipal rates” – but it underlines the disproportion between missed collections and refreshments. “I did the math, I had 7% of the losses in 2020, while for 2021 still nothing. In the meantime, I took a 30,000 euro loan guaranteed by the state, but I will have to pay them back in five years, there are bills and I have to give 10 thousand euros in rent thanks to the owner who not only reduced my rent by 300 euros but said that wait for payments without problems. In short, when they let me open, I leave with 50,000 euros of debt ». According to Brogi, the solution can only come from Rome: «The State must help us, give us real support; as well as telling us when we can, indeed we must, leave ».
The Tango teacher
“Gritting your teeth and the belt hurts,” said Giorgio Giorgi, tango teacher and national director of Csen, a sports promotion organization. “But realizing that no one considers you anything, less than zero, is worse. An endless sadness ». Giorgio and his partner are both Tango teachers. Per VAT number. And among the most sought after in Florence: their school is inside the Circolo Vie Nuove in viale Giannotti. Yet she is now starting an internship as a surveyor. And he “at the age of 47 I see what other work I can start doing … even if it is hard”. In a year and a half, Giorgio was restored for 4,000 euros: six hundred of the first Conte decree of April 2000, then the rest between November and December. One fifth of the 20,000 declared pre-pandemic. A tenth if you consider the family, because the same figures and the same differences apply to his partner. “The feeling is that the state has decided that we do not count for anything, the most total abandonment.”
The clothing store
Patrizia Pieri is the owner of a clothing store in via Gioberti. He doesn’t mince words: “We are at the gas barrel, when I go to the supermarket I try to save up to cents.” His shop, open since 1980 (originally it was in Borgo San Lorenzo), had never been in a crisis like this. “We were deluded that the refreshments could support us but instead they were alms: in a year and a half of the pandemic I received 8 thousand euros, or three installments of a rent and three bills”. For many days the shop was forced to lower the shutters. «And even when we were open – says Pieri – almost nobody buys clothes anymore and our shop is almost always empty even in the Yellow or Orange Zone. People have no more money, many are depressed, many are not motivated and the consequence is that no one buys more clothes ”. But Pieri smiles: «They make us close because they say that the shops are gathering places, but my shop is always half-empty … It all seems paradoxical to me». And finally: “I want to change country and maybe go to Germany or England, where the refreshments have arrived, but they have really arrived, those are concrete aids to help traders who have run out of money”.
April 14, 2021 | 08:35
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