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Over 1.1 million Italian public sector workers voted in elections to Rsu workplace representation bodies in November 2004. Projections indicate that trade unions affiliated to the three main confederations (Cgil, Cisl and Uil) won the great majority of the vote.
Elections of workers' representatives on unitary workplace union structure s (rappresentanze sindacali unitarie, Rsus) (IT0309304T) took place between 15 and 18 November 2004 in about 14,000 public administrations (IT9812333F).
The elections took place at a time of serious differences between the government and the public sector trade unions affiliated to the three main confederations - 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) - over the renewal of the sector's various national collective agreements. The unions are calling for an 8% pay increase while the government is offering 3% and, according to the unions, seeking to cut the economic resources for funding the new agreements and divert them to pay for its current tax reform and tax cuts (IT0412103N). The public sector Rsu elections were thus seen as a gauge of employees’ support for the negotiating positions of Cgil, Cisl and Uil
Workers seemed to view the elections as important, with turn-out at 80% compared with 75% in the 2001 elections. In total, more than 1,100,000 workers elected some 13,600 representatives. The final results are not yet available but projections based on samples indicate a sweeping majority for the Cgil, Cisl and Uil unions, whose candidates received more than 85% of the vote between them. Cgil appears to have won the largest number of votes, but Cisl seems to have retained the highest level of representation (in terms of the number of votes compared with the number of members) in the public sector.
The three confederations expressed their great satisfactions with the results. According to Giampaolo Patta, the confederal secretary of Cgil, 'the extraordinary clout of the trade union confederations and the decline of independent trade unionism emerged very clearly'. The election results, according to Mr Patta, reflect a rejection of the policy of a government that refuses to meet the trade union organisations and to negotiate the renewal of the public sector national collective agreements, which expired 11 months ago.
Rino Tarelli, the general secretary of the Cisl-affiliated Public Service Workers' Federation (Federazione lavoratori dei pubblici servizi, Fps-Cisl), stressed the victory of the main trade union confederations, which he attributed to their unity of action during disputes over the renewal of the public sector national collective agreements: 'this means that the signature of any agreement will only be possible together with Cgil and Uil.' According to Antonio Foccillo, the confederal secretary of Uil, 'the results of the elections confirm that public sector workers feel that they are well represented by the confederal trade unions.'