Following an 18-month delay, the national collective agreement for the retail and services sectors was renewed on 17 July 2008. The deal covers about one and a half million workers, including a large proportion of women, and will be valid until 31 December 2010. Among the innovative aspects of the agreement are its provisions on Sunday work and on apprenticeships. These provisions were strongly contested by one of the trade union confederations, which refused to sign the draft agreement.
Background
In July 2008, the draft agreement for renewal of the national sectoral collective agreement (contratto collettivo nazionale di lavoro, CCNL) for workers in the retail and services sectors was signed by the General Confederation of Trade, Tourism, Services and SMEs (Confederazione generale del commercio, del turismo, dei servizi delle professioni e delle PMI, Confcommercio), along with two of the three largest sectoral trade unions: the Italian Federation of Service, Commerce and Tourism Operators (Federazione Italiana Sindacati Addetti Servizi Comerciali Affini e del Turismo, Fisascat-Cisl) and the Italian Tourism, Commerce and Service Workers’ Union (Unione Italiana Lavoratori Turismo Commercio e Servizi, Uiltucs-Uil). However, the third main sectoral trade union organisation, the Italian Federation of Commerce, Tourism and Service Workers (Federazione Italiana Lavoratori Commercio Turismo e Servizi, Filcams-Cgil) – the section of the General Confederation of Italian Labour (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, Cgil) representing workers in the services sector – refused to sign the agreement.
The episode bore close similarities to the situation in the metalworking sector in 2003, when the Italian Federation of White-Collar and Blue-Collar Metalworkers (Federazione Italiana Operai Metalmeccanici, Fiom-Cgil) refused to renew the national sectoral collective agreement, even though the Italian Federation of Metalworkers (Federazione Italiana Metalmeccanici, Fim-Cisl) and the Italian Metalworkers’ Union (Unione Italiana Lavoratori Metalmeccanici, Uilm-Uil), together with the Federation of Metalworking Industries (Federazione Sindacale dell’Industria Metalmeccanica, Federmeccanica), were already signatories (IT0305204F, IT0310205F).
A full 18 months after the national agreement for the retail and services sectors had expired, the negotiations broke down following a request by Filcams-Cgil for the talks to be suspended for 10 days. This constituted a split in the previously unified stance of the three most representative trade union organisations in these sectors. The other social partners interpreted the request as a sign of Filcams-Cgil’s withdrawal from the negotiations and decided to sign the agreement without Filcams-Cgil’s involvement. The main aspects of the agreement which Filcams-Cgil deemed unacceptable concerned the introduction of compulsory Sunday work and the extension of working time.
Innovative aspects of agreement
The new agreement covers about one and a half million workers, including a large proportion of female workers, and will be valid until 31 December 2010. The pay element of the agreement provides for an average gross pay increase of €150 a month, calculated at the fourth level. The increase will be paid retroactively from 1 February 2008 onwards.
The most innovative aspects of the agreement concern flexible employment contracts and working time.
Apprenticeship, fixed-term and part-time work
The new provisions regarding apprenticeship contracts increase the proportion of newly recruited apprentices taken on by companies from 70% to 80% of apprentices at the end of the training period. Furthermore, apprentices are now entitled to the protections afforded to other workers in terms of supplementary social security and health insurance, with reduced contributions. Newly hired workers are also entitled to paid leave equal to 50% of that of permanent workers in the second half of the apprenticeship period, and to 100% by the end of that period.
As regards fixed-term work, the agreement abolishes the probation period previously required for the renewal of fixed-term contracts for the same job.
At the same time, the minimum number of weekly working hours for part-time employment contracts has been raised to 18 hours. This applies to newly recruited workers, or to those who change to part-time schedules, in enterprises with more than 30 employees.
Working hours
The maximum amount of overtime has been increased to 250 hours a year, while the reference period for calculating the maximum 48-hour weekly threshold is now six months.
The agreement allows for a derogation from the obligatory 11 hours of continuous rest between one day of work and the next. However, the time off must be taken within a 24-hour time span and a rest period of nine hours is to be guaranteed.
The most significant change in relation to working time is the introduction of compulsory Sunday work in enterprises whose activities are organised on a seven-day basis. This is to be compensated by a 30% increment in the normal hourly pay rate. However, Sunday work is to be regulated by company-level bargaining.
Reactions of social partners
The employer organisation Confcommercio expressed its satisfaction with the agreement. In contrast, the reactions of the trade union organisations were more hostile. The General Secretary of Cgil, Guglielmo Epifani, immediately declared that ‘the signing of the separate agreement will not be without consequences’, alluding to the difficult ongoing negotiations between the trade unions and employer organisations, including Confcommercio, on renewal of the bargaining system (IT0806049I). Nonetheless, the General Secretary of the Italian Confederation of Workers’ Unions (Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori, Cisl), Raffaele Bonanni, expressed his hope that Cgil would change its position, adding that the agreement was ‘innovative in many respects because it guarantees new protections for workers, shifts bargaining to the company level, and strengthens the role of the bilateral bodies’.
Cristina Tajani, Fondazione Seveso