In June 2009, the regional branches of the social partner organisations in Lazio signed an agreement with the aim of relaunching the economy in Rome and the entire region. The agreement provides for initiatives in five key areas, including: research, innovation and training; renewable energy and the environment; the development of tourism and infrastructures. It also focuses on developing a culture of health and safety at the workplace through targeted training initiatives.
On 11 June 2009, the social partner organisations in the Lazio region of central Italy signed an agreement providing for measures that are considered to be necessary to overcome the ongoing recession in the Lazio region and Italy’s capital city Rome. The agreement aims to relaunch production and raise employment levels in the region. The unemployment rate has reached 8.5% of the economically active population in Lazio, and many experts believe that this figure will increase due to the repercussions yet to surface caused by the global economic crisis.
The signatories to the agreement included, on the trade union side, the regional branches of Lazio and Rome of the General Confederation of Italian Workers (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, Cgil), the Italian Confederation of Workers’ Trade Unions (Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori, Cisl) and the Union of Italian Workers (Unione Italiana del Lavoro, Uil). On the employer side, signatories included the Association of Industrialists and Enterprises of Rome (Unione degli Industriali e delle Imprese di Roma, UIR di Roma) and the General Confederation of Italian Industry of Lazio (Confederazione Generale dell’Industria Italiana del Lazio, Confindustria Lazio).
Provisions of agreement
The measures proposed in the social partner agreement will be rediscussed every six months by the signatory parties of the agreement, taking into account the economic situation at the time of meeting.
The first part of the agreement defines the objectives and required instruments for a bilateral management of the economic crisis, as well as the relaunch of Lazio’s and Rome’s economies. The setting-up of a permanent round table is also foreseen, which will aim to deal with the economic situation in Lazio and Rome.
The employers promise to adopt ‘social shock absorbers’ (ammortizzatori sociali) – measures that help cushion the effects of possible job losses and restructuring (IT9802319F, IT0205204F). Such measures will make it possible to maintain a link between the worker and the company, and to safeguard their consolidated professional know-how.
Furthermore, the trade unions and employer organisations will together urge the region of Lazio to reorganise the regional healthcare system. They will also push for a reduction of regional tax rates, which had been earlier introduced to resolve the problem of the regional healthcare budget deficit.
The agreement places considerable emphasis on health and safety at the workplace which, through training initiatives, should become an integral part of the individual work culture of each employee. In this case, the social partners will make use of one institution, the ‘Health and Safety at the Workplace Observatory’, which will be composed of representatives of the agreement’s signatories. In addition, representatives of the local institutions and the social insurance bodies, notably of the National Social Security Institute (Istituto Nazionale Previdenza Sociale, INPS) and the Italian Workers’ Compensation Authority (Istituto nazionale assicurazioni infortuni sul lavoro, Inail), will take part in the workplace observatory.
Initiatives to relaunch regional economy
The agreement includes an attachment with a protocol for projects that the social partners consider essential to be initiated and implemented in the future. The projects cover five key areas: research, innovation and training; infrastructure; energy and the environment; administrative simplification; development of tourism and associated infrastructures.
The key points of the protocol can be summarised as follows:
- sustain quality training initiatives through the relaunch of Fondimpresa Lazio, an inter-professional fund for continuous vocational training set up by Confindustria, Cgil, Cisl and Uil;
- find subsidies, including private capital, for projects aiming to develop the technological districts of Rome and Lazio;
- help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) gain access to financing from the EU, national and regional funds, as well as through joint ventures;
- safeguard the best regional productive areas and, more specifically, set up a cartel of investors that will buy out the Institute of Bio-Molecular Research of Pomezia (Istituto di Ricerche di Biologia Molecolare di Pomezia, IRBM) – a leader in scientific research employing 160 researchers – which otherwise will be closed down by the current owners, Merck, by the end of 2009;
- conclude or begin new building projects to improve the region’s and city’s infrastructures, such as the expansion of the Tiburtina train station in Rome, two new underground lines in Rome, the widening of roads, the development of the Civitavecchia port and Fiumicino airport, as well as improving the communications infrastructure such as the development of ‘Rome digital’ with the realisation or completion of fixed and mobile or ultra-broadband networks. To do so, specific round tables are to be set up with the actors of the sectors involved;
- relaunch renewable energy initiatives and encourage the Lazio region and province of Rome to renew calls for tender that have already been deliberated in order to encourage the use of renewable energy sources. Meanwhile, the actors must push the local institutions to resolve the problem regarding the management of waste recycling processes.
According to the agreement’s signatories, in order to realise these projects and relaunch SMEs’ productivity, the administrative and bureaucratic procedures must also be simplified through the complete computerisation of the public administration.
For the province of Rome, the actors aim to develop tourism, entertainment and congress facilities. In order to do this, they have listed 10 facilities to be built in the western part of the city. The social partners indicate these structural interventions as being necessary so that the Eur neighbourhood in the east of Rome can become one of national and international importance in the event and congress sector. Regarding tourism, the actors consider that it is important to set up a trilateral round table with the local institutions in the sector.
Social partner reactions
The President of UIR, Aurelio Regina, whose organisation was the strongest promoter of the protocol, considers the agreement as one ‘of project planning’. Mr Regina considers that the planned measures aim to transform the city of Rome into a ‘hub city of the Mediterranean’. The President of Confindustria Lazio, Maurizio Stirpe, highlights that in the spring of 2010 regional elections will be held in Lazio; he therefore encouraged candidates to include the points of the agreement into their election programmes.
The Secretary of Cgil Rome and Lazio, Claudio Di Bernardino, believes that the agreement signifies ‘the relaunch of concertation’ between the social partner organisations. According to the Secretary of Cisl Rome, Paolo Rigucci, ‘we have united entrepreneurs and workers in order to operate more efficiently’.
Vilma Rinolfi, Cesos