Italy: intensifying movement against the new national banking collective agreement

Dissent over the agreement renewing the banking collective agreement signed on January 19 (see our dispatch No.  120046) is reaching “unprecedented levels” among signing unions and non-union members alike.  Some union managements, such as the Fisac CGIL, have become divided.  A small majority of the national management approved the agreement on January 24 but several local managements rejected it, highly criticizing the content and the form – the regional management of Piedmont said that “each amended article implies going back on collective bargaining and working conditions.”  The first online “No” transverse committees was launched on February 12 by union delegates, members of the signing and independent unions, and non-union members.  The goal is to organize a campaign at all levels to reject this agreement and to reopen talks on the basis of the platform approved by 96 percent of workers (see our dispatch No.  110245), which they think the signing parties betrayed.   Their petition received over 1,000 signatures in a few days, but anger and indignation are growing on blogs, comments and letters sent to newspapers, before they can express themselves during the workers’ assemblies starting today, February 17, and ending at the end of March.  With disagreements increasing, the signing unions published, on February 7, a 10-page document detailing their reasons for the agreement, saying that the concessions made to employers “are the price paid to renew the national collective agreement in the most tragic phase of the crisis.”