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In October 2003, trade unions and the Italian public sector bargaining agency, Aran, signed a national collective agreement for employees of regional, provincial and local authorities and other local bodies. The agreement provides for an overall monthly wage increase of EUR 106 and makes changes to bargaining and consultative structures.
The previous national collective agreement for the workers employed by regional, provincial and local authorities and other local bodies (enti locali) expired on 31 December 2001 (IT9811187N). It proved difficult to negotiate a new agreement, with talks lasting for 22 months and accompanied by four strikes. However, on 16 October 2003 the Agency for the representation of public administrations in collective bargaining (Agenzia per la rappresentanza negoziale delle pubbliche amministrazioni, Aran) signed a new agreement with the sectoral trade union organisations affiliated to the General Confederation of Italian Workers (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, Cgil), the Italian Confederation of Workers’ Unions (Confederazione Italiana Sindacato Lavoratori, Cisl) and the Union of Italian Workers (Unione Italiana del Lavoro, Uil) - Cgil-Fp, Cisl-Fps and Uil-Flp respectively - and a number of autonomous unions.
The agreement is the first since the recent decentralising reform of Chapter V of the Italian Constitution (IT0212107F). This reform gives regions, provinces and municipalities new legislative competences on subjects such as training policies, local policing and local development policies. These new institutional arrangements have major implications for collective bargaining and its contents, and many parts of the new sectoral collective agreement thus aim at regulating reorganisation processes in local bodies.
The new agreement aims at to abolish current wage differentials between the workers employed by local bodies and those employed by other parts of the public administrations while, at the same time, introducing new 'task-related' differentiated types of pay. The agreement provides for a wage increase of EUR 42 per month to narrow the wage differential. This will be paid on top of an increase in the national minima pay rate of EUR 64 per month from January 2002, fully backdated.
The agreement provides for the allocation of additional resources to fund payments for employees linked to responsibility and professionalism. These additional resources will not, however, be allocated to local bodies which have budget deficits. The deal also provides for the introduction of additional payments, to be defined at decentralised level, for some specific groups of workers, such as those employed in registry offices and other offices that have direct relations with the general public (known asUffici relazioni con il pubblico, Urp).
Significant changes to the structure of the sector's industrial relations system are also laid down in the agreement. The accord strengthens decentralised bargaining procedures, which will take place every four years on both pay and other issues. However, the most important innovation concerns public bodies employing less than 30 workers. These bodies will be allowed to conduct decentralised bargaining, at local level, by grouping together with other local bodies operating in the same area. In order to have access to such 'territorial' negotiations, representatives of management and employees in these bodies will have to sign a protocol specifying the members of their bargaining delegation, the subjects to be negotiated, and the organisational and funding procedures for the negotiations. The delegations will include representatives of the unitary workplace union structures (rappresentanze sindacali unitarie, Rsus) (IT0309304T) from each body involved.
The agreement also lays down procedures for social dialogue and concertation among the social partners, underlining that such concertation 'cannot be replaced by any other industrial relations procedures'. This dialogue may cover issues such as internal mobility and transfers. Furthermore, a specific joint committee will be set up to agree new occupational profiles and a new job classification system.
Workers affected by transformation, contracting-out and privatisation processes will be covered by new protective rules which provide that they will be covered by the national collective agreement for local bodies until a new and specific regulation is agreed to govern their new employment relationship.
Finally, particular attention is paid in the new agreement to the issue of bullying at work. Joint committees responsible for gathering information on bullying and its causes will be established in each local body within 60 days of the agreement coming into force. The committees will draw up positive action and code of conducts on bullying, as well as organising 'appropriate personnel training and refresher courses'.
The signatories welcomed the conclusion of the agreement. According to Rino Tarelli, the general secretary of Cisl-Fps, 'this is a good agreement, not only in terms of the wage increase but also because it improves employment relations and services.' Guido Fantoni, the president of Aran, said that he was 'sure that the signature of such an important agreement will cool down the conflictual climate of Italian industrial relations'.