IT
PRESS RELEASE
Outcomes of the convention on “The crisis of salaries and other sources of pressure on the compensation system” organised by Inapp in collaboration with Università del Sannio
INAPP ON LABOUR: “INCREASE IN COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS, THOUGH ONLY 4% OF ENTERPRISES APPLY SECOND-LEVEL AGREEMENTS
Over the past 4 years, businesses that joined CCNL have increased from 75% to 87%, but second level is stationary at 4%. The corporative dimension and trade unions still hold a crucial role.
FADDA: “The introduction of minimum wage has been a crucial point of debate in our country over the last years. However, there are many who fear that once it is introduced, companies will stick to paying that minimum and do away with collective agreements. Another fear is that, if minimum wage were fixed at too high a level, all existing collective agreements would fall in abeyance. These are groundless fears. As is usual, trade unions shall negotiate the levels of real wages and salaries, though it will never be allowed that companies pay below the minimum wage provided for by law. From a legal perspective, minimum wage shall not be deemed an alternative or even detrimental to the provisions of collective agreements. These two systems can go in tandem and strengthen one another, provided objective criteria and parameters are negotiated with a view to ensuring the rights of all workers, none excluded”
Benevento, 23 January 2024 – Collective agreements have been growing over the past for years, increasing from 75% to 87%, whereas second-level agreement are stationary, and were applied by only 4% of businesses and enterprises as of 2022. The above are included in the outcomes of the convention titled “The crisis of salaries and other sources of pressure on the compensation system”, organised by Inapp and Università degli Studi del Sannio – Benevento.
The first thing to determine when discussing collective agreements is the extent to which they are adopted across our territory. Through ELS (i.e. the Enterprises and Labour Survey, conducted periodically by INAPP on a sample of ca. 30.000 enterprises on the Italian territory), it is possible to arrive at an esteem of how widespread first- and second-level agreements are throughout the country.
With the last two surveys (2018 and 2022), it has been esteemed that the amount of enterprises with at least 1 employee and declaring to have subscribed to CCNL has increased by 12%, going over from 75% to 87%. This datum, however, could be extremely variable depending on factors such as the size of businesses and enterprises and their geographical distribution. Indeed, just by looking at the biggest enterprises (those with at least 250 employees) it will become apparent that the amount of those that apply collective agreement rank as high as 98%, whereas those with less than 10 employees bear a percentage of 84%. Furthermore, enterprises adopting the national collective agreement in the North of Italy are 88%, whereas in the South and islands the percentage decreases to 86%.
Looking into second-level agreements, the situation is even worse: enterprises adopting it amounted to 3,5% ca. in 2018, 4% in 2022. However low these percentages are, there has been a slight increase over the last 4 years, probably due to light policies of promotion of decentralisation of collective agreements, i.e. policies aimed at enhancing the autonomous diffusion of second level through economic leverage.
As was highlighted by Inapp’s President Sebatiano Fadda: “High-volume enterprises and high trade union representativeness of the labour force are positive determinants with respect to the diffusion of first- and second-level agreements. The likelihood of second-level agreements increases from 10% to 14% if trade unionism is present in the relevant enterprise. However, we also need to bear in mind that trade unions are especially structured within the biggest enterprises and businesses, and even in this case they might not always be influential in determining trends of real wages and salaries. Nonetheless, there is a wide range of parallel situations falling outside the realm of trade unionism nowadays, due to a phenomenon of fragmentation of jobs and professions. Just to mention one of the possible cases, there are atypical workers, i.e. fixed-term workers performing their activities in the context of the so-called gig economy. They are part of a group that has been labelled as working poor, and they are not well represented. What can be done for them?”
Fadda said in conclusion: “The introduction of minimum wage has been a crucial point of debate in our country over the last years. However, there are many who fear that once it is introduced, companies will stick to paying that minimum and do away with collective agreements. Another fear is that, if minimum wage were fixed at too high a level, all existing collective agreements would fall in abeyance. These are groundless fears. As is usual, trade unions shall negotiate the levels of real wages and salaries, though it will never be allowed that companies pay below the minimum wage provided for by law. From a legal perspective, minimum wage shall not be deemed an alternative or even detrimental to the provisions of collective agreements. These two systems can go in tandem and strengthen one another, provided objective criteria and parameters are negotiated with a view to ensuring the rights of all workers, none excluded”
For further information:
Giancarlo Salemi
Spokesperson for INAPP’s Preseident (347 6312823)
www.inapp.gov.it
Attachemnts
CS_CrisiSalari_23.01.2024