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Cleaning and Services Interassociative Team (TIPS) Forms to Support Italy’s Cleaning Industry

Given the persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cleaning and Services Interassociative Team (TIPS) has been formed. The TIPS is a new body that brings together the main associations representing Italy’s professional cleaning sector: those representing cleaning and those for the manufacturers and distributors of professional cleaning equipment. Its goal is that the institutions will be involved in the decision-making processes aimed at containing the pandemic through the cleaning of public and private facilities.

The TIPS is comprised of the following organizations:

• AFIDAMP national association of professional cleaning equipment suppliers
• Confartigianato Cleaning Companies
• CNA Cleaning Companies
• Casartigiani Cleaning Companies
• Confcooperative Lavoro e Servizi
• FNIP Confcommercio
• National School Services Foundation
• ISSA EMEA
• Legacoop Production and Services
• Unionservizi Confapi

On October 12, the TIPS presented its Manifesto of Intent in the Press Room of the Chamber of Deputies in Rome. Those in attendance included Honorable Rossella Muroni (FacciamoECO); Andrea Loro Piana, Board member of AFIDAMP Italian association of manufacturers and distributors of equipment for professional cleaning; Alvaro Giovannini, President of Confartigianato Cleaning Companies; Angelo Cornacchione, President of CNA Cleaning Companies; Paolo Melfa, Delegate of the Presidency of Casartigiani Cleaning Companies; Milena Cannizzaro, Organizational Manager, Confcooperative Lavoro e Servizi; Carmine Esposito, President of FNIP Confcommercio; Toni D’Andrea, Director of ISSA EMEA; Andrea Laguardia, Head of Cleaning, Integrated Services, FM, Environmental Hygiene, Catering of Legacoop Production and Services; Franco Tumino, President of the Fondazione Scuola Nazionale Servizi; and Vincenzo Elifani, President of Unionservizi Confapi.

The TIPS will immediately set up a control room, composed of representatives of all the member organizations, which will structure a set of proposals to bring to the attention of the Legislator and the Government, as well as awareness-raising actions towards stakeholders and public opinion.

Its main objectives include:

• Enhancement of the sector and its operators
• The standardization of cleaning processes and protocols, including the preparation of a price list that takes into account the actual execution times and methods
• The regulatory clarification of the concept of sanitation and of which subjects are qualified for this professional service, as agreed in the definitions indicated in the memorandum of intent signed between the parties on September 8
• The fight against contractual dumping, forms of unfair competition, and the total exit from the logic of the maximum discount for the purchases of services by the public administration
• The recognition and enhancement of professional skills voluntarily obtained on the job also through qualification courses for cleaning company operators
• A renewed pact between public and private based on increasing the quality of services.