Rassegna Stampa Olimpias Settimana 14: 08-04-2016...2004/08/14 · • Fallen Croatian Textile...

Rassegna Stam pa Olimpias Set t im ana 14: 08-04-2016

Wabi comunicazione d’impresa



SOMMARI O

Olim pias

Gent ile utente, non ci sono aggiornament i in questa sezione della rassegna stampa

Com pet itor

• Miroglio leader in Europa grazie alla stampa digitale • Miroglio investe olt re 20 m ilioni nel tessile. E i cont i si r isollevano

Set tore

• Levi St rauss uses waste nylon in sustainable jeans • Comment le jeans mediterraneen a esseime • I l future è nelle filiere globali • A new future for fabr ic: US text ile indust ry turns to technology for

its revival • Fallen Croat ian Text ile Company Weaves New Future • I talian wool text ile sector seeks urgent act ion on mulesing and

animal welfare



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giovedì 7 aprile 2016

Miroglio investe oltre 20 milioni nel tessile. E i conti si risollevano

Il Gruppo Miroglio traccia un primo bilancio della fase di profonda ristrutturazione che ha attraversato negli ultimi anni. «Abbiamo scelto di investire oltre 20 milioni di euro nel tessile -spiega l’a.d. Daniel Winteler - per garantire sostenibilità, ambientale ed economica, al business grazie all’innovazione tecnologica, tanto nella stampa su tessuto quanto nella stampa sublimatica (utilizzata soprattutto per la decorazione dei tessuti sintetici, ndr)». Migliorano in modo significativo i conti. In particolare, gli investimenti hanno riguardato la stampa su tessuto e la stampa sublimatica (utilizzata soprattutto per la decorazione dei tessuti sintetici, ndr) Questo, in sintesi, il messaggio che emerge da un articolo apparso oggi, 7 aprile, su Il Sole 24 Ore, che ha intervistato l’amministratore delegato del gruppo del tessile-abbigliamento di Alba, Daniel Winteler, e altri suoi manager. «La trasformazione ci ha permesso di mantenere la produzione made in Italy, garantendo alti standard di qualità e prezzi competitivi, anche rispetto alla concorrenza asiatica», ha detto Winteler al quotidiano di Confindustria . Nel solo stabilimento di Govone, il più grande impianto per la stampa tessile d’Europa, vengono stampati 15 milioni di metri di tessuto l’anno: qui nasce la collezione Miroglio Textile e sempre qui viene prodotta una parte dei tessuti per i grandi gruppi del fashion internazionale, come Inditex (Zara). I conti del gruppo si sono risollevati: il rosso si è ridotto a dieci milioni di euro rispetto al centinaio di due anni fa, l’ebit è tornato in positivo e la posizione finanziaria è migliorata del 20%, superando i 200 milioni di euro di cassa. Miroglio ha registrato un fatturato complessivo di circa 650 milioni di euro nel 2015. Anche i marchi fashion nel portfolio dell’azienda sono quasi tutti tornati alla redditività: quello che ha performato meglio è Fiorella Rubino . «Le sfide future arriveranno proprio da questo ambito e in particolare dal retail, dove sta cambiando tutto, a cominciare dal peso dell’e-commerce e dei player digitali, destinati a diventare competitor delle aziende tradizionali della distribuzione», è la visione di Winteler.



SETTORE



Feature 07 Apr 16

Fallen Croatian Textile Company Weaves New Future The iconic textile company Kamensko fell victims to the privatization blunders of the 1990s – but some of its former workers are not ready to say goodbye. Sven Milekic BIRN Zagreb

6,500 square metres former factory alone waits for new owner. | Photo: BIRN/Sven Milekic When the administrator of the textile company Kamensko last week said the company would be sold at last, five years after declaring bankruptcy, it raised hopes among the company's former workers that they will finally get years of unpaid salaries. Anni Aurei ltd, a private firm founded earlier this year by the private construction company Radnik, is buying Kamensko for 3.2 million euros. The buyer will get 6,500 square metres that Kamensko owns in an attractive location in the centre of Zagreb, overseeing a park. The value of the land was earlier estimated at around 9.8 million euros, but at the same time the debt of the company - including unpaid salaries, taxes and contributions - grew to 11 million euros by October 2010, which is when Kamensko declared bankruptcy. “This money should go to us, we’ve earned it. Why would the state collect its debt before us?” Djurdja Grozaj, who worked for the company for 34 years, told BIRN. She explained that the company still owes her five salaries and half of her severance pay. For Djurdja, as well as many others, the case of Kamensko is a prime example of a once successful company that was privatized at the end of the communist regime in the 1990s and then got lost in Croatia’s uneven transition to a market economy.



Graffitti 'Support for Kamensko Working Women' fading as well as the popular support for them. | Photo: BIRN/Sven Milekic There are hundreds of similar cases of companies across former Yugoslavia that withered away due to flawed privatization, poor management, political influence, loss of markets or other reasons. “The state is responsible for everything that has taken place and for allowing it to happen,” Djurdja said. Kamensko was one of many companies established during the industrial boom in communist Yugoslavia, which started after the end of World War II. It started working in 1950 as a textile factory in the centre of Zagreb, next to the square dedicated to France, facing the old 19th-century Austro-Hungarian barracks. In its glory days in the 1980s, 2,500 mostly female employees worked in two or occasionally three shifts, tailoring and sewing quality clothes for both men and women. The quality of the work was such that up to 90 per cent of its products were exported to German and other Western markets. Kamensko was best known for its men’s suits and it produced models even for such top brands as Pierre Cardin. “We were a house of European fashion,” Djurdja said proudly, pointing to the plate with the Kamensko logo that was erected on the factory entrance in the 1960s.

New working place of Kamensko women. | Photo: BIRN/Sven Milekic “It was better for us under Socialism, it’s true. We got our salaries paid regularly, always on the 15th [of the month]. It was never later, only early,” she said. Even after the demise of communism in former Yugoslavia, when various foreign brands and newly-opened boutiques became accessible for everyone, MPs, politicians and businessmen, both older and younger generations, still used to buy their suits and jackets in Kamensko outlets or even in the factory itself.



At the time, you could get a high-quality limited edition sports jacket for little over 100 euros, topping other brands in terms of quality and affordability. At the same time, conditions in the company got worse. Most employees earned only around 250 euros a month, which was only a third of the average Croatian salary at the time. Besides the low wages, employees worked longer hours and without a proper air-conditioning system, which caused some of them to faint every now and then.

Djurdja proudly showing creation her association made. | Photo: BIRN/Sven Milekic “It was around the minimum wage and it was almost nothing, but we didn’t know any better,” Djurdja recalled. With the break-up of Yugoslavia, Kamensko went through a process of privatisation as did most other state-owned companies. The company was fully privatised in 1993. The main stockholders established new executive and supervisory boards while workers got a chance to buy shares for a price just below the market value. Later, workers were advised to sell their shares for a lot less than they had paid for them. While production continued, the company started sacking workers but still maintained small but regular salaries for the rest. The real problems for the workers began in 2009, when for the first time the salaries came late. “At first it was a few days late, then days turned into weeks, which turned into months. One cannot live without money; you have to pay for utilities, food,” Djurdja said.

Kamensko's plate that stood on the factory from 1960s, working women took to their new home. | Photo: BIRN/Sven Milekic



Stefica Relic, her colleague who worked for 33 years in Kamensko, was one of those who lost their jobs and struggled to find new ones. “When we lost our jobs and went to seek new work, no one would take us, since most of us were over 50. We went through a lot of things,” she told BIRN, recalling her experience after she applied for a job in a cable company. "When I said how old I was and that I had three children and so I really needed a job, they replied that they were ‘not a social welfare institution’,” she said. Eventually, in late 2009, Kamensko had to borrow 105,000 euros from another private company, Energa Tehna, just to pay its wages. The company director, and one of the biggest shareholders, Antun Crlenjak was fined some 3,000 euros in 2011 for not declaring bankruptcy within the legal period. Most workers and some of the independent media blamed the government for allowing such a successful company to go bankrupt, and especially for allowing it to not pay salaries for several months, and for withholding contributions on salaries for some three-and-a-half years. Workers tried to stage protests in 2010, but were denied support from their unions, while most of the mainstream, government-controlled media ignored their demands. In 2010, when salaries were delayed for several months, a group of 19 workers went on a hunger strike and slept in the park in front of the factory. “We were sleeping practically on the concrete. It was six degrees [Celsius], pebbles were pinching you and you were just waiting for dawn so you could get up and go to the factory, wash yourself and start working,” Djurdja recalled. “If we’d died in that park, it would have been a story for a few days and nothing more. That’s why we decided to stop the hunger strike and start with protests all over again,” she said. After the company declared bankruptcy and stopped production in October 2010, a number of workers established an association called “Open Kamensko” in 2011, after the City of Zagreb gave them two spaces in the neighbourhood of Knezija, one for an office and a second for the workshop. The women bought some machines with donations and started working in cooperation with some local designers who designed models for them, using Kamensko as a popular name in the textile industry, but sewing everything – from small corrections on jeans and suits, up to designed creations.



Italian wool textile sector seeks urgent action on mulesing and animal welfare

by Terry Sim, 08 April 2016

ITALY’S wool textile industry has had discussion on a call for urgent action from the International Wool Textile

Organisation on sheep welfare standards and mulesing deferred until November.

A delegation from the leading textile federation Sistema Moda Italia – representing the entire Italian supply chain

from topmakers to spinners, weavers and retailers – has asked IWTO to release a worldwide standard for animal

welfare and not mere guidelines.

The SMI motion put to the IWTO Heads of Delegation council meeting at the 85thIWTO Congress in Sydney last

Sunday also strongly suggested inclusion of the use of anaesthetic pain relief before and after sheep are mulesed.

“In other words, what we are recommending is to treat our animals in exactly the same way as a human being who

should undergo any kind of surgery.

“If we do just that, what could we be blamed for then?” the delegation motion said.

Delegation spokesman Claudio Lacchio said he had seen sheep dying of flystrike and recognised that mulesing in

certain areas was “a must”. But if it was demonstrated that sheep could be treated exactly same as a human being

– with pre-operation and post-op pain relief — “anybody can say whatever they like,” he said.

“Mulesing is a must in certain areas, but we must give a credible answer to the consumer, not to animal rights

organisations, that we do things correctly.”

The Italian delegation sought approval and implementation of a sheep welfare standard by all the wool-producing

IWTO country members and relevant certification bodies, possibly before the next IWTO Biella Round Table in

November.

“This is our request, which also has the added advantage of avoiding undue interferences by other “private”

bodies, companies and organizations which are currently creating significant confusion on the market.”

The indirect reference to the position of private organisations trying to impose animal welfare standards on the

industry was followed by the delegation’s contention that the IWTO is the only entity which could and actually

should release a worldwide animal welfare standard for the industry.

Fears that other bodies will take lead on sheep animal welfare

IWTO should not let anybody else take the lead on the issue of animal welfare standards, Mr Lacchio said.

“We are asking IWTO and AWI indirectly to recognise there is a problem on the table and a big one.

“Not to say, ‘No, we are wonderful, everything is fine, you won’t be touched’.”



Mr Lacchio said the problem of animal welfare and mulesing in Australia is still far from solved after several

years. After the delegation tabled their motion, Mr Lacchio said a prominent Australian industry person asked him

why he was attacking the Australian industry.

“He said ‘Why are you raising a problem which is not there? — I said ‘first of all the problem is there’ and he said

to me if you insist on that, there is an option for the growers, to go on cattle,” he said.

“So what if they want to go on cattle, they go on cattle — but you don’t tell me that if I talk about mulesing

people will go on cattle – you solve the problem.”

Mr Lacchio said the delegation was very disappointed that it was seen as “raising troubles for the sake of raising

troubles” in Australia.

“We want the people here (in Australia) to tell the truth – that there is a problem and we are going to solve the

problem by doing this, not that the problem is not there.”

Mr Lacchio said SMI members were getting messages, enquiries and requests every day that the clients – retailers

and big brands – are worried and don’t want to use wool of a particular origin or wool generally, if it is not

guaranteed to be mulesing-free.

“We think this issue is not acknowledged, especially in Australia,” he said.

“There is a little bit of confusion, you’ve got to understand that at retailer level they don’t really care about if there

is pain relief or not — they refer to mulesing in general terms.

“Pain relief does mean something, but they accept wool that is non-mulesed.”

Company requested that wool not be sourced from Australia

To support their motion, the Italians presented a redacted yarn order from a northern European client specifying

that the required yarn must not be from Australian wool. The delegation wanted Australian growers to know there

are wool customers who now did not want to buy Australian wool. Clients were increasingly asking for non-

mulesed certificates as a prerequisite, Mr Lacchio said.

“Our feeling is that in Australia in particular the big organisations who should take care of this, they think the

problem is solved and we think the problem is not solved at all.”

Mr Lacchio said IWTO should take the lead and set standards for animal welfare including mulesing in particular,

but has only released guidelines. SMI understood that it could not impose standards in countries or on growers.

“But we fear the lead on this could be taken by other organisations.”

The Italian delegation’s motion to the IWTO said Italian and European processors are disappointed by a never-

ending list of undelivered promises, unmet deadlines, mistaken assumptions and inadequate conclusions on the

issue of mulesing.

“We don’t feel backed and protected in our efforts to try and promote wool, and European brands are considered

to be quite influential in deciding which kind of raw material is used in the (fashion) collections,” the motion said.

The delegation said it seemed the whole approach and implementation of Australia’s action plan on mulesing

needed to be reconsidered and that the money invested could probably have been spent more wisely.

“(There is) no real sense in continuing to talk about mulesing or not mulesing, we all know it is necessary in some

areas not to let the animals die, we are of course aware of this fact…and no sense in continuing to discuss with

people who would criticize and ban wool regardless.”



“Today the issue is mulesing, tomorrow it will easily be something else, today Australia is under the spotlight,

while tomorrow it will easily be another country,” the motion said.

“Let’s change the approach, let’s be proactive, let’s sell the story that wool has got nothing to hide regarding

animal welfare.”

IWTO sheep welfare guideline launch in September

The proposed launch of IWTO’s sheep welfare guidelines in September at Dumfries House, Scotland, was not too

long, “as long as they address the problem sooner rather than later”, Mr Lacchio said.

“We don’t want to create any political hiccup at the moment, we’ve guaranteed the discussion will take place at

Biella in November.

“But at the same time we think that the process has been very slow, a lot of money has been spent and could have

been spent more wisely.”

Chinese IWTO delegation member Madame Yang Xiaoxiong told the IWTO Congress in Sydney this week that

Chinese consumers understood mulesing was a necessary practice in wool growing, but Mr Lacchio said mulesing

is an issue after 14 years.

The Italian delegation is also seeking support for their motion from other countries within the IWTO.

“We do hope all the players and the countries involved will support this initiative, urging IWTO to take a strong

stance, so as to go beyond an old, defensive and unsatisfactory approach and to embrace instead a positive,

constructive and effective attitude towards animal welfare.”

Sheep Central will next publish IWTO president Peter Ackroyd’s position on many of the issues detailed in this

article.

Rassegna Stampa Olimpias Settimana 14: 08-04-2016...2004/08/14 · • Fallen Croatian Textile...

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