News update as of February 9, 2018

Italy/ Social partners struggling to seal agreement to reform collective bargaining model. After a year and a half of talks, Confindustria, the Italian employers’ federation, and the three main trade union centrals – CGIL, CISL and UIL – are yet to reach a compromise. At the end of 2017, bilateral technical committees drew up a document entitled ‘contents and guidelines for industrial relations and collective bargaining’, which is currently being assessed by the leadership of the four groups. However, several fundamental issues still need to be addressed. In particular, the CGIL is opposed to the solutions sought by Confindustria on wages, welfare and training. According to reports in Italy, the provisional text is believed to give more flexibility to national collective agreements, which would continue to set minimum wage levels but would encourage, as far as possible, the use of company-level agreements. Pay rises would become decreasingly centralised and be linked to the productivity of each company. Each national collective labour agreement would include branch-level welfare measures that are deemed appropriate (health insurance and supplementary schemes). The CGIL, as reaffirmed by its general secretary Susanna Camusso last week, is demanding guarantees on pay rises and that training be recognised as a right for workers. The union also underlines that there should not be a “trade-off” of welfare at branch or company level for pay rises. While a three-way agreement between CISL, UIL and Confindustria remains a possibility, Vincenzo Boccia, the president of Confindustria, sought to ease tensions on 8 February. He said the industry pact, as it has been dubbed by the employers’ federation, is part of a “journey” and emphasises the need to create an atmosphere of “trust” between social partners around the negotiating table.