Italy : salaries and bonuses are the main theme in company agreements

The second report (here) on second level collective negotiations undertaken by the Cgil trade union together with the Fondazione Di Vittorio, which studied 1,887 agreements signed between 2017 and 2019 (in companies and at local level) has found that the main theme continues to be economic (salaries and bonuses, with 53.4% of the agreements), industrial relations (50%), and followed in third place by working time (1/3 of agreements). Out of the 924 company agreements studied, the bulk (1/3) focuses on performance bonuses, based primarily on profitability and productivity indicators. The average bonus amount sat at €1,428 and 42% of agreements allowed the conversion of some or all of the bonus amount into welfare services (social protection and employee well-being). Approximately 15% of agreements implement innovative initiatives in work organization including smart-working, direct employee involvement, work organization changes, quality systems, ‘team-working’ etc. The report confirms that the traditional worker information and consultation mechanisms continue to be strongly influential, but also notes that the formalization of new forms of direct worker participation in work organization remains sparse. The report’s summary states that company collective bargaining ‘must manage innovations that are introduced in terms of work practices and production processes, starting with digitalization, worker training geared towards innovation, and coherent corporate welfare.’ Companies with more than 250 employees are especially focused on the most innovative themes.