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November 1999's elections for Rsu worker representative bodies in the Italian Post Office saw strong support for the main trade union confederations, Cgil, Cisl and Uil, which received around 80% of the votes, rather than independent unions. Nevertheless, there are deep divisions among the confederations concerning plans to restructure the Post Office.
The Italian Post Office (Poste) is one of the largest service enterprises in Italy, covering the entire national territory with a network of 14,000 local branches, and employing 178,000 people in 1999. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the Post Office has been undergoing a phase of radical reorganisation intended to improve its efficiency. Three main objectives have been pursued: curbing costs; achieving a budget surplus; and increasing the quality of the service. Various strategies have been adopted to achieve these aims.
Despite these changes, the Italian Post Office is still in difficulties, as highlighted by the balance-sheet figures for the first half of 1999. Although showing an improvement in comparison with 1998 (for example, a 6% increase in revenues and a 38% reduction in losses), losses still amount to ITL 636 billion (according to the Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper on 8 October). According to the managing director, Corrado Passera, restructuring will be complete in 2002.
The first elections for "unitary trade union representation bodies" (Rappresentanze sindacali unitarie, Rsu s) (IT9812333F) in the Post Office were held on 9-10 November 1999, at a juncture in the company history which was significant for a number of reasons.
First, the changes described above have also affected human resources management, with inevitable repercussions for industrial relations. On account of the high cost of labour in the postal service, staffing has been radically reduced: from 220,000 employees in 1993 to 178,000 in 1999. Use has also been made of internal mobility, so that 10,000 employees previously engaged in administrative work have been moved to the counters. A new bonus system has also been introduced (IT9807175N), and the collective agreement for senior officials now provides that pay increases must be linked to performance.
Second, the general company collective agreement, which expired at the end of 1997, is currently being renegotiated. The most controversial issues concern flexibility and pay increases. The company regards the reduction of costs, and labour costs in particular, as essential if the Post Office is to operate efficiently and profitably. Bearing in mind the financial figures for the first six months of 1999, the company believes that the margins for wage increases are very narrow.
Finally, on the trade union front, in the autumn of 1999, the Cisl confederation was strongly critical of the plan to restructure the Post Office, and in particular of the business plan for 1998-2002. According to Sergio D'Antoni, secretary of Cisl, and Nino Sorgi, secretary of Flp-Cisl, the affiliated postal workers' federation, the limited results achieved so far demonstrate that a different approach to restructuring the postal service is required. The policy pursued thus far has penalised the workforce, for example through the reduction of employment and the recourse to outsourcing. According to Cisl, the Post Office should instead introduce a participative model based on worker shareholding, like the system set up by the Alitalia airline (IT9706306F). This proposal has been strongly criticised not only by the company but also by the Cgil union confederation, in view of the company's substantial losses, which it believes make the distribution of shares premature.
According to the official figures supplied by the trade unions, 131,000 workers voted in the Rsu elections out of a total of 166,000 entitled to do so.
The results confirm Cisl's predominant position among postal workers with 41% of the votes, followed by Cgil with 21.5%, and by Uil with 16.8%. The remaining 20% of the votes were distributed among eight lists presented by independent unions.
The union confederations have declared themselves well satisfied with the results of the Rsu elections, which show that they enjoy a high level of support compared with the independent unions. There has been no lack of controversy, however. According to Cisl, the vote has endorsed its critical stance on the company's restructuring plan. Cgil and Uil, for their part, point out that although Cisl is the largest union, it received fewer votes than its total membership. The fact that, by contrast, Cgil and Uil received more votes than they have members is interpreted by their representatives as showing workforce support for their more flexible position on the project to reorganise the Post Office.
The elections of the Rsus in the Post Office confirm a pattern that has emerged from elections for these company-level worker representation bodies elsewhere (IT9709211F and IT9812333F) - namely a high turn-out and substantial support expressed for the union confederations compared with the independent unions. At a time when the Italian parliament is discussing a bill on the representativeness of trade union organisations (IT9804226F), the Rsu elections have demonstrated the continuing solid support for the unions in the workplace.
In the specific case of the Post Office, the elections do not seem to have healed the divisions created among the union confederations by the plan to restructure the company. Indeed, the elections may have increased these divisions due to the competition among the unions. Nevertheless, greater unity of action among the unions seems crucial for the success of the company's restructuring plan. The experience of many companies in the industrial sector highlights the importance of a participative style of industrial relations which takes concrete form in the decentralised negotiation of corporate reorganisation. (Marco Trentini, Ires Lombardia)