In mid December 2006, employer organisations and the main sectoral trade union federations reached agreement on the renewal of the pay element of the national collective agreement for local public transport workers. Moreover, the government announced details, for the first half of 2007, of meetings that will involve regional authorities, local public authorities and the social partners, and which are aimed at devising adequate initiatives to remedy the sector’s structural difficulties.
On 14 December 2006, an agreement (in Italian, 118Kb PDF) was reached on the renewal of the pay element of the national collective agreement for local public transport workers. The signatories to the agreement were: the government, the Union of Italian Provinces (Unione delle province d’Italia, Upi), the National Association of Italian Municipalities (Associazione nazionale comuni italiani, Anci), the Association of Local Public Transport Companies (Associazione delle società ed enti del trasporto pubblico locale, Asstra) and the National Association of Passenger Road Transport (Associazione nazionale autotrasporto viaggiatori, Anav); on the trade union side, the signatories included the Italian Federation of Transport Workers (Federazione italiana lavoratori trasporti, Filt-Cgil), the Italian Federation of Transport (Federazione italiana trasporti, Fit-Cisl), the Union of Italian Transport Workers (Unione italiana dei lavoratori dei trasporti, Uiltrasporti-Uil), the National Federation of Transport Workers (Federazione nazionale autoferrotranvieri, Ugl-Autoferrotranvieri) and the Independent Trade Union Federation of Transport Workers (Federazione autonoma italiana sindacale autoferrotranvieri, Faisa-Cisal).
The deal affects more than 115,000 workers employed by around 1,200 companies in the sector and covers the two-year period 2006–2007.
Main provisions of agreement
The agreement includes the following main pay provisions:
- an allowance to cover the collective agreement gap, that is, the period since the expiration of the previous agreement at the end of 2005, in accordance with the provisions of the tripartite Agreement of 23 July 1993; this allowance consists of a one-off payment of €600, to be paid in two instalments – one in February and the other in April 2007;
- an average pay increase of €102 a month, €50 of which is to be paid from January 2007 and €52 from September 2007.
Most of the financial resources required to cover these pay rises have been made available by the government (€190 million), while the remainder have been furnished by the regional administrations (€20 million) and by companies operating in the sector (€30 million).
Earlier industrial conflicts
The consensus reached on the renewal of the agreement came after almost a year of negotiations, which were marked by a high level of conflict. The initial positions of the two sides were significantly polarised: on the one hand, the bargaining proposals put forward by the trade unions in early 2006 envisaged an average pay increase of €115, whereas the employer organisations conceded to a substantially lower pay rise of €60. In order to increase pressure on the employers and to break the deadlock in negotiations, the trade unions held five nationwide bargaining strikes between January and December 2006, as well as a further national strike relating to the dispute on payment during sick leave for local transport workers (IT0508104N).
The difficulties and turmoil experienced in 2006 confirm that the local public transport sector is among those with the highest levels of industrial conflict. In 2004, the dispute over the renewal of the national transport workers’ collective agreement – signed on 14 December 2004 for the period 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2007 – gave rise to tensions that resulted in numerous episodes of conflict (IT0412101N). This situation had been preceded by equally difficult negotiations on the renewal of the previous national pay agreement; the negotiations were marked by a series of industrial conflicts, among them the total blockade of transport services in Milan on 1 December 2003 (IT0312204F).
Structural problems of sector
The high level of conflict in the sector seems to be partly linked to the structural problems evident in Italy’s local public transport sector. On the one hand, the sector lacks sufficient funds to finance the renewal of sectoral collective agreements and to modernise its infrastructure and vehicles; at the same time, the sector faces difficulties in introducing measures to enhance quality of service and cost-efficiency in the sector.
Many of these problems still remain unresolved and have been compounded by the introduction of reforms and the liberalisation of the sector in 1997. However, in an effort to address such problems, the signatories to the renewed agreement of 14 December 2006 have undertaken to hold, in the next few months, a series of meetings aimed at devising strategies and guidelines for changes to the current structure of local public transport.
Reactions of social partners
Public authorities, employer organisations and the sectoral trade unions have expressed their satisfaction with the contents of the new agreement and with the forthcoming talks on the reform of the sector. Under-secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office, Enrico Letta, has stated that the consensus on the pay element of the national agreement ‘will bring about definitive structural change in the sector. The forthcoming negotiations among the government, regional administrations and the trade unions should devise structural forms of financing for local public transport, ensuring a definitive solution to this long-standing problem’. Emphasising the need for further reform in the sector, General Secretary of the Italian Confederation of Workers’ Trade Unions (Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori, Cisl), Raffaele Bonanni, declared that ‘to prevent the agreement renewal from becoming an ordeal for workers and citizens, it is necessary to make major changes to local public transport. For this purpose, and on the basis of the agreement just reached, in the next few weeks we must discuss what action to take, paying maximum attention to the sector’s system of financing’.
Diego Coletto, Fondazione Regionale Pietro Seveso