Maintenance workers wave flags and slow traffic outside Naval Support Activity Naples' Support Site location Feb. 21, 2024, to protest the base's landlord. They say the company, Mirabella, does not pay them on time. Mirabella officials say they've paid the employees in accordance with the terms of their contract. (Alison Bath/Stars and Stripes)
NAPLES, Italy — Workers responsible for maintaining sailor housing and other facilities at Naval Support Activity Naples protested Wednesday, saying they are getting their paychecks late from the Italian company that functions as the base’s landlord.
About a dozen of the employees demonstrating outside the base’s Support Site main gate said Mirabella habitually varies the date it gives them their wages.
The uncertainty of not knowing when they will receive their money causes hardship when it comes to paying bills and feeding their families, said Antonio Turino, a maintenance worker at the base.
He added that the workers were “not here against the Americans” but simply wanted to draw attention to their plight.
A Mirabella spokesman disputed the workers’ account, saying that wages consistently have been paid to employees according to their contract for at least the last five years.
The disagreement arises from a notification Mirabella recently gave to the union representing the workers that they would be paid on Feb. 22, said Armando Marino, managing director for Mirabella.
That notification came within the time prescribed by the contract, which allows the company to pay employees as many as two days before or after the stipulated payday on the 20th of each month.
For example, workers were paid last month on Jan. 18, Marino said.
“We are not upset with the workers, but we do not understand the real reason they are doing this,” he said.
Mirabella owns and manages the Support Site, which includes the base’s housing, schools, hospital, commissary, and other facilities and services. The company employs about 125 workers on the site represented by three unions.
The smallest of those, Confederazione Unitaria di Base, or CUB, represents 16 workers involved in Wednesday’s protest, according to Mirabella. CUB representatives vowed to continue the rally on Thursday.
Base officials opened a back gate Wednesday to ease any traffic congestion caused by the protest and will continue to monitor for safety, said Lt. j.g. Cody Milam, a spokesman for NSA Naples.
NSA Naples is the home of U.S. 6th Fleet and Naval Region Europe, Africa, Central as well as other Navy commands located at the base’s Capodichino site, adjacent to Naples International Airport.
It’s about 14 miles south of the Support Site and managed by the Navy.
