Italy: Self-employed workers.
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This report furnishes information on self-employment and ‘semi-subordinate’ employment in Italy. It describes the main definitions used for the characteristics and some of the most significant aspects emerging from quantitative and qualitative studies on self-employment and semi-subordinate work conducted in Italy in the past 10 years.
1. Legal provisions and social security
Please provide the definition of self-employed workers which is applicable in your country.
The Civil Code (CC) is the principal normative source for the distinction between subordinate employment and self-employment. It defines a self-employed worker as a person who ‘undertakes to perform a work or a service for remuneration, mainly by means of his/her own labour and without a relationship of subordination to the client’ (CC, art. 2222). According to the CC, the principal characteristics distinguishing self-employment are therefore the absence of subordinate status and the requisites of professionalism and habituality: in fact, for work to constitute self-employment, it must be performed as a habitual and not occasional occupation.
The self-employment relationship is typical of the intellectual professions, but also of other activities, such as artisanal and entrepreneurial ones. The CC defines an entrepreneur as a person who ‘professionally performs an economic and organised activity with the aim of producing or exchanging goods and services’ (CC, art. 2082), while it defines ‘small entrepreneurs’ as farmers, craft workers, traders, and those who exercise ‘a professional activity mainly organised with their own labour and that of their family members, without being dependent upon or under the direction of another person’.
In some cases, a self-employed worker is obligatorily enrolled on a professional register (‘albo professionale’) and is subject to supervision by the council of the professional order exercising disciplinary power over its members. The professional orders are considered to be public bodies. They are elected by all those enrolled on the professional register and financed by membership fees.
The notion of self-employment therefore comprises very different forms of work, from farming to trading, from occupations with professional registers to personal services, to the new occupations produced by changes in the productive system since the 1970s. Therefore, covered by the same label are traditional and new categories, protected in terms of social security and otherwise, and whose only feature in common is the absence of a relationship of subordination towards the principal (an absence that, in certain cases, is only theoretical).
In Italy, moreover, the general category of self-employment also comprises so-called ‘para-subordinate’ (or ‘semi-subordinate’) work, which has characteristics midway between those of dependent employment and self-employment. At present, ‘para-subordinate’ workers are those who receive incomes from ‘employer-coordinated freelance work’ or ‘project work’, professional activities, occasional self-employment, door-to-door sales (if the annual income is more than EUR 5,000), and joint ventures. Among the ‘para-subordinate’ employment relationships, that of ‘employer-coordinated freelance work’ is the one that has become most widespread in recent years and that, in various respects, best exemplifies all the ambiguities connected with ‘semi-subordinate’ work. This form of employment is defined by three fundamental features:
continuity: the contractual obligation does not cover a single objective, but the generic availability of the worker to perform certain activities during a certain (and, some times, indefinite) span of time;coordination: the performance of work, even if it does not involve subordination, must be coordinated with the functional requirements of the principal’s organisation;non-entrepreneurship: the work must mainly involve the use of personal labour, means and equipment, but must not extend into activities of an entrepreneurial kind.
The employer-coordinated freelance relationship has recently been regulated by legislative decree (d.lgs.) 276/2003, which relates it to the contractual form regulating ‘project work’, defining more stringent criteria for its use.
From the point of view of statistical analysis, the National Statistics Institute (Istituto nazionale di statistica, Istat) defines as a self-employed worker ‘a person who performs his/her work in a legal-economic organisation without a relationship of subordination’. Pertaining to this category are:
the owners, partners and administrators of a firm or institution, provided they effectively work in the firm or institution, are not on the payroll, are not paid by invoice, and do not have an employer-coordinated freelance contract;members of a cooperative who effectively work in the enterprise and are not on the payroll;the family or kin of the owner, or owners, who work without receiving a contractual wage or without payment of social security contributions.
Both the normative and statistical criteria have created definitions that cover radically different economic-social and professional phenomena. In order to define what actually constitutes a self-employed worker, it may be useful to cite some classifications drawn up on socio-economic criteria. On the basis of such criteria, various studies have identified four figures typical of the self-employed (Barbieri, P., Liberi di rischiare. Vecchi e nuovi lavoratori autonomi, in Stato e mercato, no. 56, 1999). Excluding entrepreneurs, these socio-economic figures are:
traditional free professionals enrolled on professional registers which regulate access to the profession and its conduct. This category may comprise employees, but only a limited number;artisans and traders, who represent the traditional forms of ‘petty bourgeoisie’ self-employment, their family members, and a small number of dependent employees;self-employed workers in skilled occupations, but not regulated by professional registers or by corporative arrangements;self-employed workers in unskilled occupations, without employees and operating on their own account in the market, perhaps assisted by family members (Barbieri, 1999).
The spread of the last two types of self-employed work, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, has been subjected to close sociological analysis. The characteristics that differentiate these two types of self-employment from the more traditional ones, and their links with concomitant changes in the Italian productive system, have given rise to the expression ‘second-generation self-employment’ to denote these forms (Bologna, S., Fumagalli, A. (eds.), Il lavoro autonomo di seconda generazione, Milan: Feltrinelli, 1997).
Briefly indicate the main differences, if any, in the social security regime of self-employed workers with no employees compared with: a) employees; b) self-employed with employees.
In general, in Italy, self-employed workers are not covered by the legal and trade-union protections afforded to subordinate workers. However, this general situation does not apply to the categories of self-employed workers under the tutelage of the professional orders (or registers).
As regards social security matters, old-age protection for self-employed workers, as for subordinate employees, is mainly provided by public schemes financed by compulsory insurance or by basic pension schemes. In Italy, such schemes are managed by two bodies: the National Institute of Social Insurance (Istituto nazionale di previdenza sociale, Inps) and, for the public sector, the National Institute of Social Insurance for the public administration (Istituto nazionale di previdenza dell’amministrazione pubblica, Inpdap). The Inps manages the social security treatments of certain categories of the self-employed through three funds (for craft workers, traders, and farmers and sharecroppers), besides managing the basic pension schemes for ‘semi-subordinate’ workers. There also exist privatised funds for free professionals, these being independent agencies which provide social security coverage for various occupational categories of the self-employed. These bodies are not subject to the general Inps regime and can freely define their own social security regulations, provided that they comply with specific parameters of long-period financial equilibrium. In Italy, the categories of self-employed workers with privatised funds for the management of social security treatments are: lawyers and attorneys; notaries; accountants; consultants; accountants; psychologists; doctors; nurses; biologists; veterinary surgeons; pharmacists; surveyors; engineers; and architects.
As regards the financing of pension benefits, this is ensured by the compulsory payment of social security contributions. The amount levied differs according to the occupational category. For dependent employees, two thirds of the contribution is paid by the employer and one third by the worker, while the entire amount is paid by self-employed workers. In the case of the social security schemes managed by the Inps, the contribution rates differ considerably between subordinate employees and self-employed workers: the former, in fact, pay a 32.7% rate, while self-employed workers and ‘para-subordinate’ workers enrolled with the Inps pay rates varying between 10% and 23.5% in relation to various parameters.
Finally, the 1995 law reforming the pensions system (law 335/1995) introduced a special (or ‘separate’) Inps scheme which extended social security coverage to certain categories of self-employed workers that had hitherto been excluded. The special Inps scheme finances a compulsory fund which guarantees a pension (invalidity, old age and survivor) calculated using the contributions-based system if a minimum of five years’ contributions have been paid. Initially, this special social security fund, reserved mainly for ‘semi-subordinate’ workers, was financed by contributions levied at a rate of 10%, divided between worker and principal. The amount and composition of the contribution rate, however, have been repeatedly redefined: the most recent change was made by the Finance Act of 2007. There are currently two rates for semi-subordinate work:
the first rate - applying to all workers not covered by compulsory schemes other than the Inps separate scheme - is 23.5% (23% for invalidity, old age, and survivor pensions, plus an additional 0.5% for sickness and maternity benefits and for family allowances);the second rate (16%) applies to workers and professionals enrolled with other compulsory social security schemes, to direct pension-holders (that is, persons entitled to pensions deriving from contributions paid), and to the holders of a survivor’s pension.
For ‘para-subordinate’ workers, two thirds of social security contributions are paid - as for subordinate employees - by the commissioning firm and one third by the worker.
Please indicate the existence of any particular legal forms of employment which cover contractual relationships which are commonly regarded to be mid-way between dependent employment and self-employment (if necessary, see for a longer discussion of the concept the EIRO comparative study ‘Economically dependent workers', employment law and industrial relations’).
whether they are commonly considered as economically dependent employment;specify the main features of such forms of employment and whether they enjoy specific social security regime and, if relevant, the basic features of such special regime (please refer this illustration to the answer given to question 1.2 above).indicate any rules which generally apply to this kind of employment as for: a) working time and vacation; b) maternity and parental leave; c) sick pay and leave for sickness
The past twenty years have seen the increasing diffusion of ‘non-standard’ forms of work, i.e. of forms whose characteristics differ from those of indefinite duration and full-time employment. Particularly common among these ‘non-standard’ forms is the ‘semi-subordinate’ employment relationship which combines conditions typical of subordinate employment with those typical of self-employment. The category of ‘semi-subordinate’ work covers a wide variety of occupations, with very different employment conditions. According to several studies, the various professional figures engaged in ‘semi-subordinate’ work can be divided into two broad categories according to income and type of work. On the one hand, there are administrators, auditors, and board members, who make up around one third of the total of ‘semi-subordinate’ workers. On the other hand, there are the various kinds of freelance workers who all together constitute around two thirds of ‘semi-subordinate’ workers. ‘Semi-subordinate’ work, and in particular employer-coordinated freelance work, assumed more precise quantitative features and greater statistical visibility with the 1995 law reforming the social security system and which - as stated in the previous section - created a specific compulsory social security fund to afford protection to ‘para-subordinate’ workers and some categories of self-employed workers previously excluded from such protection. Employer-coordinated freelance work is the most widespread form of ‘para-subordinate’ employment, and it exhibits, both in its definition and application, many of the ambiguities characterising ‘semi-subordinate’ work (IT0202204S). For several years, this form of employment has been at the centre of discussion among experts, social partners, and political decision-makers concerning its real position in the self-employment/subordinate employment dichotomy, its weight in the Italian occupational structure, its social effects, and its relationship with the more general processes of ‘flexibilisation’ affecting the Italian labour market in the past 10 years. As said above, employer-coordinated freelance work is defined by three features: continuity, coordination, and non-entrepreneurship. Other distinctive characteristics have emerged from the numerous empirical surveys conducted in the past eight to 10 years. Essentially, the majority of employer-coordinated freelancers work for a single principal/employer, in a workplace owned by the latter, and with fixed working-time schedules. These work conditions increase economic dependence on the principal, who may be the only source of employment for the large majority of freelancers.
In general, however, ‘semi-subordinate’ work comprises very heterogeneous situations: ranging from professional services furnished to different employers to the improper use of employer-coordinated freelance labour for jobs that could, or should, be performed under the legal form of subordinate employment.
In order to prevent the use of ‘bogus’ semi-subordinate work, legislative decree 276 of 2003 (IT0307204F), which reformed the Italian labour market, introduced the figure of the ‘project worker’, thereby reducing the range of application of employer-coordinated freelance contracts. The regulations on project work do not apply to:
‘occasional work’, i.e. with duration of less than 30 days in one year, unless the remuneration exceeds EUR 5,000;the intellectual professions with mandatory enrolment on a professional register;administrators, auditors and old-age pensioners, who are still covered by the previous rules on employer-coordinated freelance work.
Moreover, the rules on project work introduced in 2003 are not applicable within the public administration, where the previous rules on employer-coordinated freelance work apply.
The ‘project work’ contract states that the job, besides being the ‘performance of continuous and coordinated work, primarily personal’, must be referable to one or more specific projects or to phases of it/them. The normative framework introduced in 2003 has also established a series of provisions intended to provide greater protection for freelancers. In particular, the law extended to freelancers the health and safety rules applying to dependent employees (d.lgs. 626/1994) in cases where the work is performed on the principal’s premises. Moreover, employer-coordinated freelancers are entitled to protection in case of pregnancy, sickness and injury. In these cases, the principal cannot resolve the contractual relationship as previously: the employment relationship is instead suspended without pay. The duration of the suspension, however, may not exceed one sixth of the established duration of the contract. Compared with the past, greater protection has been introduced for pregnant female freelancers: in this case, in fact, the duration of the relationship is extended by 180 days, except if more favourable treatment is provided for by the individual contract. Further changes have been made by the Finance Act of 2007: since 1 January 2007, employer-coordinated freelancers enrolled with the separate Inps scheme, not pension-holders, and not contributing to other compulsory social security schemes, have been entitled to a daily sickness allowance paid by the Inps, for episodes lasting no more than four days and with a maximum number of days equal to one sixth of the general duration of the employment relationship (and in any case for no less than 20 days in the calendar year). The level of the allowance is 50% of the amount paid to this category of workers for hospitalisation. The same law introduced an allowance for parental leave which is paid for a three-month period within the first year of the child’s life and to an amount equal to 30% of the income taken as the benchmark for calculation of maternity allowance.
As regards social security treatment, as already stressed in the previous point, the contribution rates for ‘semi-subordinate’ workers are notably lower than those for dependent employees: ‘para-subordinate’ workers, in fact, pay a 23.5% rate, whilst dependent employees pay a 32.7% rate. Overall, the cost of ‘semi-subordinate’ labour and the protections and rights stipulated by the law continue to be significantly lower than the cost of the protections and rights granted to dependent employees.
2. Recent trends in self-employment with no employees
Please provide data on recent trends in self-employment (since 2000):
| 2000 | 2003 | 2006 | 2007 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Men | Women | Men | Women | Men | Women | Men | Women | |
| Self-employed (no.) (*) | 4,176,000 | 1,881,000 | 4,249,000 | 1,952,000 | 4,222,000 | 1,851,000 | n.a. | n.a. |
| Self-employed with no employees (no.) | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. |
Note: (*) The figures are the annual labour-force averages reported by the Istat. In this case, the self-employed workers include the following categories: entrepreneurs; free professionals; own-account workers; cooperative members; family helpers; employer-coordinated freelance workers; project workers; occasional workers.
Please report, according to available research and studies,
the distribution of self-employment without employees across sectors and occupations;whether self-employment without employees has either increased or decreased significantly in recent years (since 2000) in specific:
Sectors and activities.Occupations (International Standard Classification of Occupations – ISCO 88, at one digit).and in specific groups of workers defined by:Gender (men/women).Age groups (younger/older; 14-24, 25-54, 55-64; 65 and over).Nationality (nationals/foreign nationals).Other relevant dimensions to be specified.
The National Statistics Institute does not issue data on self-employment without employees except on the occasion of censuses. The 2001 census data relative to this specific category of workers are not yet available. However, the particular structure of the Italian production system - with a predominance of enterprises with no more than five workers - allows one to apply, with a good degree of approximation, the categories and patterns of the self-employed in general to self-employed workers without employees.
In general, Italy has been historically characterised by a high level of self-employment. This concerns a number of workers that, since the 1980s, has oscillated between four and five million units, in percentages between 20% and 25% of the total labour force. The greatest increase in the percentage weight of self-employment occurred at the end of the 1970s, which was the period when the crisis of the so-called ‘Taylor-Fordist production model’ became definitive. In the 1990s and 2000s, the ratio between self-employed workers and dependent employees has been substantially constant. Confirming this trend, on average, is that the increased level of employment in 2005 and in 2006 was due to the substantial increase in subordinate jobs which more than off-set the reduction in self-employment. The decrease in the proportion of non-dependent work was mainly due to a fall of self-employment in the traditional sectors (farmers and small traders) matched by an increase of self-employment in construction and especially in the non-commercial tertiary sector: business and personal services, education, social, health and financial services. With particular regard to economic sectors, between 2000 and 2006, self-employed workers decreased in agriculture (-84,000 units) and in industry (-19,000 units), while they increased in services ( 58,000 units) and in the construction industry ( 76,000 units).
As regards occupational position, in 2006 the majority of the self-employed were own-account workers (3,659,000), while free professionals numbered 1,107,000, and family helpers 425,000. Among own-account workers, 1,092,000 worked in industry, and 2,177,000 in services: among the latter, the largest number was employed in commerce (1,147,000). Almost all free professionals worked in services (1,050,000): of these, 115,000 were employed in commerce, and 634,000 furnished business services.
As regards gender, quantitative surveys and various qualitative analyses of self-employment report that, in general, the majority of non-dependent workers are men. As for age, various studies have shown that the self-employed differ by age group according to the type of occupation. For instance, in the case of the free professions, the largest cohorts comprise people aged over 50 - that is, well-established professionals - and the ‘new professionals’ aged under 40. The age range between 50 and 60 also predominates among artisans and traders. Again in relation to age, the majority of the high-skilled self-employed belong to the over-50 cohorts, whilst low-skilled self-employed workers are largely equally distributed among the various age classes.
As regards the territorial distribution of self-employment, the traditional free professions, manufacturing crafts and small trade are more present in the North-East of Italy and in the South, while the unskilled self-employed displays a uniform geographical distribution. Free professionals in occupations without professional registers are more common in the North, particularly in the large cities. This relation signals that the new forms of intellectual self-employment have spread mostly in areas where the productive system has changed the most, introducing new forms of work organisation and advanced technology.
Also employer-coordinated freelance workers are found among self-employed workers in industry, and especially in non-commercial services, but their quantitative contribution, although constantly growing, is still rather limited (this point will be stressed in the next section).
Based on existing research and studies, please provide any available data on the diffusion and recent trends of:
All legal forms of employment indicated in section 1.3 above (contractual relationships mid-way between dependent employment and self-employment and economically dependent employment), specifying whether they concentrate in any sectors and/or occupations.‘Bogus self-employment’, i.e. formal self-employment which is fraudulently used to disguise contractual relationships which should be properly registered as dependent employment, in order to avoid the protections and costs (both wage and social contributions) connected with the latter, specifying whether it concentrates in any sectors and/or occupations.
Determining the actual number of active ‘semi-subordinate’ workers and, particularly, of employer-coordinated freelancers, is still difficult. At present, insufficient information is available to gain a precise statistical picture of ‘semi-subordinate’ work (either on a freelance or project basis). In general, the available data are hard to interpret. As already stated, the statistical visibility of this form of work has increased since 1995, the year when the Inps created a special social security scheme. In the period 1996-2005, the number of active contributors to this scheme more than doubled, rising from 839,000 to 1,711,000 (Inps data. Inps, Il lavoro parasubordinato nel 2005, Rome, 2007). The maximum number of contributors was reached in 2001-2002, when it surpassed 3 million. However, this large figure does not indicate the total number of effective ‘semi-subordinate’ workers, but rather the cumulated number (ie the stock) of persons who had been a ‘para-subordinate’ worker at least once between 1996 and 2005 and whose names had not been removed from the Inps database (also because there is no pressing reason to do so). To obtain the exact number of freelancers from subscribers to the separate Inps scheme, it is necessary to exclude the following: those with employer-coordinated freelance work as a second activity; and professionals and company administrators who pay contributions into the Inps separate scheme, but are not ‘semi-subordinate’ workers.
Thus, those who should be considered are those who pay contributions during one year and who work for one or more principals/employers on a freelance basis only. In this case, there are two main sources of information: the administrative databases of the Inps and the Istat labour force survey. In 2004, the Istat estimated employer-coordinated freelancers at around 410,000; but the estimate only took account of the main work activity declared by interviewees and jobs subject to compulsory contributions by the employer. To the 410,000 units estimated by the Istat, however, there should be added the further 100,000 subjects who declared that they had occasional work contracts, that is, contractual arrangements similar in many respects to employer-coordinated freelance work. The 2004 aggregate calculated by Istat was therefore 504,000 units, just under 2% of total employment and 7% of self-employment, rising to around 15% in the case of female self-employed workers. According to studies that used the Istat longitudinal labour force survey as their main source (Altieri, G., Dalle collaborazioni coordinate e continuative al lavoro a progetto: cosa cambia nel mercato del lavoro italiano, in Pallini, M., Il lavoro a progetto in Italia ed in Europa, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2006), in 2004 individuals whose main employment consisted of employer-coordinated freelancing were predominantly aged under 35. They represented 51.6% of persons employed with this contractual form. On including the 35-to-39 age group, the percentage rose to 65%. The majority of employer-coordinated freelancers were women (61%), concentrated in the central regions of the country (65%). In general, however, freelance work is most widespread in northern Italy (55.6%), whilst 27% of employer-coordinated freelancers lived in the central regions and 17% in the South. As regards the professional workers, whose main activity consists of employer-coordinated freelance work, the majority belonged to the categories termed ‘intellectual’ or ‘technical’ by the Istat, and which represented 54% of all freelancers. Only 4% of employer-coordinated freelancers had unskilled jobs, with a similar percentage among blue-collar occupations. As far as education is concerned, the majority of employer-coordinated freelancers were highly-educated, or anyway above the average for the Italian labour force: 30% of freelancers had degrees or upper-secondary school diplomas, compared with circa 13% of the general labour force, while only 19% of them had at most lower-secondary certificates, compared with the overall 42%. As regards economic sector, employer-coordinated freelancers mainly worked in the area of business and professional services (35%), in education and health (17.8%), and in social and personal services (10.5%). Around 10% worked in commerce, while industry and agriculture accounted for less than 13% of the total number of employer-coordinated freelancers estimated in 2004.
Various studies have reported the large use of employer-coordinated freelance employment relationships in the public administration, although it is difficult to quantify them exactly. The main difficulties derive from the fact that, especially in regional administrations and local authorities (the main users of this contractual form), employer-coordinated freelance contracts are awarded discretionally, so that they at least partly omitted from national statistics on employment relationships. It is likewise difficult to quantify the employer-coordinated freelance contracts stipulated by public agencies (e.g. research institutes) but not directly referable to spending on personnel. In general, however, numerous case studies have highlighted the widespread use of employer-coordinated freelancers in the civil service, mainly to remedy staff shortages without breaching the rigid ceiling on hirings imposed in recent years on the public administration. A calculation based on annual accounting data from the Ministry of the Economy and Finance with reference to 2001-2002 estimated that, in 2001, there were 84,700 employer-coordinated freelancers in the public administration and 85,700 in 2002.
In general, other estimates of employer-coordinated freelance employment relationships confirm the trends reported by the 2004 Istat study. In December 2007, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security published a study on employment and forms of ‘precarious’ work based on Inps and Istat data. In this case, in 2006, it was estimated that employer-coordinated freelance workers (and project workers) totalled 404,000, the majority of them being employed in non-agricultural sectors (399,000). In percentage terms, freelancers working in non-agricultural sectors represented 1.8% of all workers in those sectors and 1.7% of the total labour force.
As regards gender, women (228,000) outnumbered men (171,000). Concerning age, employer-coordinated freelancers were concentrated in the first three age-classes: 47,000 were aged between 15 and 24; 91,000 between 25 and 29; and 82,000 between 30 and 34. It should be pointed out, however, that, in 2006, 126,000 employer-coordinated freelancers were aged over 40. As far as geographical distribution is concerned, they were more numerous in the North-West and the Centre of the country (respectively, 130,000 and 106,000), while in regard to economic sectors, the majority worked in services (341,000).
3. Collective representation and collective bargaining
NCs are requested to indicate the main collective representation organisations of employed workers with no employees or of the workers with the special contractual relationships illustrated above in section 1.3. In particular, they should provide information on:
The type of associations (trade associations or trade unions).The associational domains of each of such associations: territorial, sectoral, occupational, professional, etc.Membership and membership rates.Any forms of social dialogue or collective bargaining these associations engage in, specifying:
The levels at which such activities take place (national, sectoral, territorial, company).The actors they engage in these activities with (public authorities, employers associations, single employers).The topics typically covered by these activities.The typical outcomes of such activities (joint documents and declarations, guidelines, agreements, etc.)A brief description of the content of some (two or three) of the main and most recent of such documents.
In general, self-employed and ‘semi-subordinate’ workers appear difficult to unionise (see also the next section). Various surveys have shown that widespread among these workers - and especially among free professionals, small artisans, traders and small entrepreneurs - is a ‘do-it-yourself’ attitude and the perception of being ‘self-entrepreneurs’, with a propensity to represent one’s interests personally. For different reasons, ‘para-subordinate’ workers also seem to have a scant propensity to let themselves be represented by collective representation organisations. The low level of legal protection and the economic instability that seem connected to particular forms of ‘semi-subordinate’ work place workers in a position of vulnerability, which negatively affects the individual choice to join a trade union.
On the employers’ side, the main associations representing the interests of self-employed workers and small entrepreneurs are:
The Italian Confederation of Medium-Small Enterprises (Confederazione italiana della piccola e media industria, Confapi), which represents over 50,000 firms with around one million employees. Confapi is structured territorially on a provincial basis (through the provincial Associations of Medium-Small Enterprises - Associazioni provinciali delle piccole e medie imprese, Api). The Api are coordinated by 13 upper-level regional federations. There are then five lower-level regional federations to which firms directly belong. The organisational structure of Confapi is also based on the national sectoral associations, which stipulate collective agreements with the respective trade union federations, while Confapi concludes with the national trade union confederations the interconfederal agreements covering the entire industrial sector.General Italian Confederation of Commerce, Tourism, Services, Professions and SMEs (Confederazione generale italiana del commercio, del turismo, dei servizi, delle professioni e delle PMI, Confcommercio), with around 820,000 members. Confcommercio’s system of representation is both territorial - with provincial organisations and regional unions - and sectoral, with national sectoral organisations.Confartigianato, which represents crafts firms. In 2006, Confartigianato had more than 521,000 member enterprises belonging to 870 sectors of activity. The associates are organised into 120 territorial associations, 20 regional federations, 12 sectoral federations, and 74 groups of trades. Confartigianato is signatory to national and regional interconfederal agreements on matters concerning the entire productive system, 17 national-level collective agreements for crafts firms, as well as numerous regional collective agreements.National Confederation for the Crafts Sector and Small and Medium Enterprises (Confederazione nazionale dell’artigianato e della piccola e media impresa, Cna) is the national system generally representing crafts firms - with particular regard to small and medium-sized enterprises - the Cna Pensionati (pensioners), and the relative interest groups: entrepreneurs, young entrepreneurs, and all forms of self-employment. The Cna system consists of the regional associations (19), the provincial associations (108), the Cna Pensionati (representing 210,000 pensioners), and the national unions. In 2006, the Cna had around 600,000 associates. In order to represent a particular category of self-employed workers, so-called ‘professional freelances’, the Cna has created the Cna own-account (Cna-in proprio) intended to give representation and visibility to this particular category of self-employed workers.
On the trade unions’ side, the Independent Commerce and Service Workers’ Union (Coordinamento lavoratori autonomi commercio e servizi, Clacs), affiliated to the Confederation of Workers’ Unions (Confederazione italiana sindacati dei lavoratori, Cisl), coordinates numerous associations which protect forms of non-dependent employment in various categories (art and culture, insurance, driving schools, petrol stations, call centres, judicial deposits, commercial distributors, leaflet distributors, newsagents and tobacconists, internet and web, family mediators, music and entertainment, financial operators, justice workers, security personnel, tourism operators, travelling shows, street traders). Moreover, in 1998, the three main Italian trade union confederations - the General Confederation of Italian Workers (Confederazione generale italiana del lavoro, Cgil), Cisl, and the Union of Italian Workers (Unione italiana del lavoro, Uil) - created special structures aimed at representing so-called ‘atypical’ workers, among them workers with employer-coordinated freelance contracts. Cgil and Cisl have respectively founded the New Work Identities (Nuove identità di lavoro, Nidil-Cgil) and the Association of Atypical and Temporary Agency Workers (Associazione lavoratori atipici e interinali, Alai-Cisl), while the Uil has assigned representation of ‘atypical’ workers to the Committee for the Employment of Atypical Workers (Coordinamento per l’occupazione dei lavoratori atipici, Cpo-Uil), which initially represented and furnished services to unemployed workers and persons with ‘socially useful jobs’ (IT9807327F; IT0202204S).
The aim of these trade union organisations is to secure greater protections and rights for ‘atypical’ workers. In recent years, their action has consisted, firstly, in exerting pressure on the government to gain approval of rules intended both to strengthen social security, sickness and maternity benefits for ‘atypical’ workers and to introduce forms of income support during periods when such workers are unemployed. Moreover, pressure has been applied to obtain approval of institutionalised forms of regulation of ‘atypical’ work which reduce the number of years in which a person may have ‘atypical’ work contracts. Secondly, the action of the trade union organisations has involved negotiations to conclude collective agreements at national, territorial, and company level.
Recently approved at legislative level have been significant provisions concerning the contractual position of employer-coordinated freelance workers, particularly those employed in call centres. These legal provisions have been followed by collective agreements implementing their contents. In particular, after lengthy negotiations and legislation, the 2007 Financial Act introduced an opportunity to ‘stabilise’ employer-coordinated freelancers deemed to be employed improperly (i.e., to convert employer-coordinated freelance contracts into open-ended contracts. IT0707019I). On expiry of the period established for stabilising the employment relationships of employer-coordinated freelance workers (30 April 2007), a joint note issued on 8 May 2007 by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, employers’ organisations - Confindustria and Assocort - and trade unions - Cgil, Cisl and Uil - announced that about 20,000 workers, of whom 90% were employed in call centres, had had their employment relationships stabilised. This stabilisation had come about through the conclusion of 72 agreements for a total of 82 firms (some agreements have group validity).
More generally, the agreements on ‘atypical’ forms of work reached in recent years have concerned areas where there is a greater need for flexible use of the workforce: mainly new technologies, and business and personal services.
In the public sector, Nidil-Cgil, Alai-Cisl and Cpo-Uil have signed various framework agreements on the use of ‘atypical’ workers by central-level and decentralised public authorities and bodies. In the private sector, company-level agreements predominate. The contents of such agreements vary according to the company and the socio-economic context in which it operates. However, there are some aspects that recur in many of these agreements: definition of the range of application of flexible employment relationships; the strengthening of protections in regard to sickness, maternity, and workplace health and safety; the organisation of training schemes for employer-coordinated freelancers; and the creation of joint consultation bodies tasked with monitoring the use of ‘atypical’ forms of work.
As mentioned above, the most recent agreements reached by Nidil-Cgil, Alai-Cisl and Cpo-Uil have concerned the ‘stabilisation’ of call-centre workers, and they have been concluded with various companies operating in the sector: for example, the Almaviva group, Call&Call (Lombardy), In&Out (Rome), Televoice (Lombardy), Media Call and Com.net. (Lombardy).
4. Employment and working conditions
Wage levels, of self-employed workers without employees compared with the national average.The incidence of low-paid jobs (that is, according to the OECD definition, jobs which pay less than two-third of the median wage) among self-employed workers without employees compared with the national average.Working hours, of self-employed workers without employees compared with the national average:
Average hours actually worked per week.Diffusion of long working hours (more than 10 hours a day).Diffusion of work at unsocial hours (night, weekend).
Place of work of self-employed workers without employees compared with the national average:
Home/office distribution.
Exposure to risks and accidents at work of self-employed workers without employees compared with the national average:
Work accident rates.
Health outcomes, work-related health problems and occupational illnesses of self-employed workers without employees compared with national average:
Occupational illness rates.Work intensity and stress at work
Lifelong learning of self-employed workers without employees compared with the national average:
Participation rates in continuous education and training.
Work-life balance of self-employed workers without employees compared with the national average:
Presence and take up rates of maternity/parental leave (according to the applicable social security regime).Presence and take up rates of long-term leave (according to the applicable social security regime). If possible, please indicate the reasons for long-term leave.Degree of control of personal working time.Degree of consistency of personal working time with family and social commitments.
Job satisfaction of self-employed workers without employees compared with the national average:
Degree of satisfaction with employment conditions.Degree of satisfaction with working conditions.
As stressed above, in Italy, self-employment is today a contradictory phenomenon, in which ‘new’ occupations linked together by the use of advanced technology are flanked by traditional ones. Consequently, employment and working conditions differ greatly according to the form of self-employment, but also according to the economic and social context in which such work is performed.
In general, most studies on self-employment examine forms not conditioned by the existence of professional registers or other institutional arrangements. Therefore, omitting all those professional figures whose working conditions are guaranteed by regulations or by professional registers, experts and researchers tend to analyse self-employment along two dimensions: ‘functional’ and ‘hierarchical’. The former involves classification of occupations by content and type of tasks performed. The latter, the ‘hierarchical’ dimension, instead concerns the social relations inherent in the employment relationship and the position occupied by the subject in that dimension (Barbieri, P., Lavoro autonomo di ‘seconda generazione’: problemi e prospettive, in Polis, XII, 1998, pp. 263-281). In operational terms, this dimension distinguishes the ‘actual’ labour-market situations of subjects into two types of self-employed worker: the free professional; and the so-called ‘sub-contractor self-employed worker’. The free professional is defined by his/her number of clients: the free professional’s working conditions are therefore largely determined by his/her bargaining power in the market. In the case of ‘sub-contractor, or single-principal, employed workers’, their substantial subordination to a single employer in many cases gives rise to ‘the pursuit of strategies for mere survival which centre on the price for work performed, turning this particular type of self-employed worker into an irregular dependent employee de facto subject to a relationship of subordination’ (Barbieri, 1998, p. 266).
As regards the former group of self-employed workers (free professionals, multi-client, not enrolled on a professional register), in 2007, the Cna-in proprio association carried out a survey entitled ‘The New Professions’ in which telephone interviews were conducted with 488 professionals with VAT status (and therefore without commercial premises), not enrolled on the main professional registers, but subscribing to the special Inps social security fund. The principal target of the survey was self-employed workers who had freely chosen self-employment and supplied their services to several clients. It emerged that these self-employed workers form a highly diversified category compiled solely on the criterion of the absence of a specific professional register. But this only partly comprises the ‘new professions’, given that the majority are consultants to business in sectors ranging from financial analysis, budget control, to marketing research. As regards the ‘new professions’, the majority of the interviewees worked in the IT and web sector, or arts and entertainment. However, their weight was small (only 6% of the interviewees worked in IT, and around 8% in the arts and entertainment sector). Another group of self-employed workers that emerged from the survey consisted of physiotherapists, masseurs, interviewers, translators and interpreters (all of them without a professional register). The interviewees were divided into three clusters: ‘very satisfied’, ‘satisfied’, and ‘dissatisfied’.
The first group consisted of just under half of the interviewees. These regarded professional work as the affirmation of their abilities. Their average monthly gross income amounted to EUR 1,800. The majority of them were young (decidedly younger than those who made up the other clusters) and had entered the profession only a few years previously. The feature of their profession which they appreciated most was independence (four interviewees out of five). The principal problem with their professional activity was defined as ‘instability’, i.e. the unpredictability of income also in the short term (including the difficulty of collecting payments). The cluster of the ‘satisfied’ interviewees were less young, (slightly) more of them were male, and they worked fewer hours per week on average than did the other clusters. They especially appreciated the flexibility of their work schedules. Their average gross monthly income amounted to EUR 1,600. One interviewee out of four belonged to the cluster of the ‘dissatisfied’. This group was largely female, less educated than the other clusters, and older. These subjects were characterised by a low level of disposable income (EUR 1,000-1,500 gross a month, with an average of EUR 1,200), even though one interviewee in every three worked more than 40 hours a week.
Analysis of the interviewees as a whole showed that, in the category of business services, the number of clients in one year mainly ranged from three to five (60%); for around 33% the figure was only two or three. As regards household and personal services, the number of clients was even smaller: the majority of interviewees in this category of the self-employed had only two or three clients. As far as working time is concerned, the interviewees worked an average of 39 hours a week, although more than one in four worked more than 40 hours a week. As to the level of satisfaction, the investigation found that the majority of interviewees (over 50%) had perceived an improvement in their standard of living since the beginning of their activity/profession. Dissatisfaction was greatest among the subjects with a lower level of education (almost one in three with a lower-secondary school certificate said that they were dissatisfied with their work). Regarding income, the survey revealed an extremely heterogeneous situation (around 10% of the interviewees decided not to answer this question). Disposable income was correlated above all with seniority in the profession, with a constant and regular progression. A significant difference in disposable income emerged between men and women (around EUR 500 a month); the highest incomes (over EUR 2,000 gross a month) were restricted to a very narrow group of interviewees: essentially, business consultants with more than 10 clients. As regards associationism, less than half of the interviewees belonged to an association, professional or sectoral; it is above all among professionals that membership of associations is particularly rare. There were two main reasons for not joining an association: on the one hand, the fact that many interviewees perceived independence to be the fundamental value of their work activity; on the other hand, the specificity (and/or novelty) of the occupation seemingly restricted the availability of interest representation organisations.
However, the majority of studies on self-employment conducted in the past 10 years have concentrated mainly on forms of ‘para-subordinate’ work, and in particular on employer-coordinated freelancers. Recently, the Inps published a study on ‘semi-subordinate’ work in 2005, which analysed various dimensions characterising active ‘para-subordinate’ workers, ie subscribers to the special social security scheme, to which, since 1995, they had been paying contributions. In this case, the ‘semi-subordinate’ workers were divided into:
‘concurrent’ workers: persons who undertook work activities besides those declared for the special Inps fund, or who received pensions that formed part of their total incomes; and‘exclusive’ workers: persons declaring that they had no other activities besides their ‘semi-subordinate’ work.
In general, and on average, the annual taxable income declared by employer-coordinated freelancers in 2005 was EUR 14,930. There are, however, significant differences according to the geographical area in which the person worked, and according to gender. In 2005, the average income of a employer-coordinated freelancer in the North of Italy was EUR 17,450, in the Centre it was EUR 12,820, and in the South EUR 9,400. Women earned markedly lower incomes than men: in the North, the average annual income of a female employer-coordinated freelancer was EUR 11,010, while for a male it was EUR 21,790; in the Centre, women received EUR 8,790, while men received EUR 16,090; in the South, a female freelancer’s average income was EUR 6,120, while that of a male was EUR 12,310. In 2005, 41% of employer-coordinated freelancers had annual incomes amounting to less than EUR 5,000 - because of brief employment spells during the year, or because of lower earnings. On average, ‘exclusive’ semi-subordinate workers earned less than those who also had other sources of income or who were pensioners: in 2005, in fact, their taxable income was equal to EUR 13,600 (compared with EUR 14,930 of the others).
The Institute of Economic and Social Research (Istituto di ricerche economiche e sociali, Ires), drawing on the 2004 Istat labour force survey and data furnished by the Inps, has estimated that, also among highly-qualified intellectual professions, only a very small minority of employer-coordinated freelancers earned incomes amounting to more than EUR 2,000 a month, while the majority of them (44.5%) had monthly incomes of between EUR 800 and EUR 1,200. The Ires study also estimated that, in comparison to the average earnings of a dependent employee with an equivalent job grade and a similar working-time schedule, an employer-coordinated freelancer in this income bracket earned between 40% and 50% less than his/her dependent employee counterpart. For lower job grades, employer-coordinated freelancers were increasingly less penalised in comparison with their dependent counterparts, mainly because of the rather low levels of average income earned by all dependent employees. However, the Ires reported that 85% of freelancers with lower job grades earned less than EUR 800 a month. In general, the incomes received by employer-coordinated freelancers were lower than those of dependent employees in similar jobs. This economic penalisation does not concern their current incomes alone but, because of their different Inps contribution rates, also their future pension incomes (see section 1, point 2).
Both the Istat and Inps data show that the majority of employer-coordinated freelancers had, in 2004, a single principal/employer (92% of the total). This feature predominated in all the professional groups. Various studies have underlined that ‘dependence’ on a single principal may make it difficult for an employer-coordinated freelancer to refuse requests for ‘exceptional’ commitment in terms, for instance, of working hours.
Studies on the working conditions of employer-coordinated freelancers have highlighted that the majority of them work on the company’s premises and with a daily presence in the workplace, without any autonomy in regard to working hours and often with schedules identical to those of colleagues with a dependent employment contract (Altieri, 2006). The Ires study above-mentioned also showed that, in 2004, the majority of employer-coordinated freelancers (55%) worked between 21 and 40 hours a week. A significant percentage of female freelancers (34% of the total) worked at most 20 hours. The female freelancers who worked reduced hours were almost equally divided between ‘voluntary’ and ‘non-voluntary’ part-timers. Among men, 28% of freelancers worked part-time: in this case, the ‘non-voluntary’ rate was smaller (35.5%). The main reasons given by employer-coordinated freelancers who voluntarily worked part time were study and family care responsibilities. The same survey has also reported that in 70% of the cases analysed, the employer-coordinated freelance contracts expired during the year. Despite this finding, employer-coordinated freelance employment tends to be continuous: 86.5% of freelancers had been such also in the year preceding the survey. However, this continuity seems to produce neither stability nor, above all, conditions that enable an individual to plan a decent life. Almost all surveys on this segment of the world of work, in fact, have noted the constant presence of constraints detrimental to family life, both in terms of exit from the family of origin and of fertility.
In regard to the degree of satisfaction with working conditions expressed by employer-coordinated freelancers, the various studies conducted on the matter have highlighted conflicting and not easily interpretable elements: on the one hand, there seems to be widespread satisfaction with and interest in the content of the work; on the other hand, there seems to be dissatisfaction with the living conditions that derive from work with this type of contract. Such dissatisfaction is due to the mix of unfavourable conditions connected with the employer-coordinated freelance relationship: few contractual guarantees, low current incomes and low future pension benefits.
5. The social partners’ positions
In general, the organisations representing the interests of self-employed workers press for greater recognition by the institutions of the value created by this type of work, and they believe it important to create a legislative, but also economic and social environment, able to foster the full affirmation of the self-entrepreneurial skills that characterise the majority of non-dependent workers. In particular, the Cna-In proprio association, which represents ‘professional freelancers’, stresses the need of these independent workers for ‘greater social representation and more visibility’. The association calls for closer protection of the professionals that it represents, and their clearer distinction from ‘atypical workers, who may work intermittently, and who experience injustice and exploitation which, in their case, represents not a free choice but an imposition by their sole commissioner’.
As regards ‘para-subordinate’ workers, the trade unions maintain that their protections and rights should be increased and strengthened. The unions stress in particular the need to devise legislative, but also contractual, mechanisms able to reduce the improper use of ‘atypical’ forms of work, such as employer-coordinated freelance contracts and project work contracts.
Although Confindustria and other employer organisations recognise the need for more precise rules on the use of employer-coordinated freelancers, they argue that such rules must not restrict the flexibility connected with such forms of ‘atypical’ work and the opportunities that it can create for firms, but also for workers.
6. NC Commentary
Although in the past 10 years self-employment has been constant, it continues to be a phenomenon ‘typical’ of the Italian labour market. The notable quantitative growth of self-employment that characterised the 1970s and 1980s has diminished, but the changes that have taken place in this segment of employment and in its relationship with dependent employment have been significant. ‘New professions’ have arisen alongside traditional forms of non-dependent work, and major changes have occurred in work processes, in their contractual regulation, and in the position of the self-employed worker within the organisational and productive structure of the commissioning enterprise. Various changes have also concerned ‘para-subordinate’ work, making the world of self-employment and its understanding even more complex. Connected with all these transformations are new social costs. As emphasised earlier, many of the ‘new professions’ and forms of ‘semi-subordinate’ work have, in fact, levels of social protection clearly inferior to those afforded to dependent employees. Accordingly, debate has resumed - after 1997 - on the possibility of drawing up a Jobs’ Statute (IT9709310F; IT9803223F; IT9807327F; IT0011273F) that guarantees by law a universal system of protections operating regardless of firm size, the sector, and the type of employment relationship. The theme of social rights seems again to be terrain for discussion between the government and social partners (IT0705029I), as also shown by the Agreement on Social Security, Work and Competitiveness to Favour Equity and Sustainable Growth approved by the government and the social partners on 23 July 2007 and recently converted into law (law no. 247 of 24 December 2007. IT0710029I).
Diego Coletto, Fondazione Regionale Pietro Seveso