National collective agreement signed for professional offices

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Late July 2001 saw the conclusion of Italy's first single national collective agreement for the 1 million staff employed by 'professional offices'- ie the offices of lawyers, engineers, architects etc. The agreement provides for increases in pay and seniority increments and commits the parties to drawing up a full framework of terms and conditions of employment for the sector.

On 25 July 2001, the commerce and services sector federations affiliated to the three main trade union confederations - Filcams-Cgil, Fisascat-Cisl and Uilctus-Uil- signed with representatives of 'professional offices' a first-ever single national collective agreement for the sector. 'Professional offices' constitute the practices of professionals - lawyers, engineers, architects and the other "liberal" professions - which employ one or more other people. More than 1 million workers are employed in such offices.

The agreement was enabled by a government decision to recognise the applicability to the professional offices sector of the 23 July 1993 national intersectoral agreement, which governs the Italian bargaining structure (IT9803223F). This allows for the recognition of the sector's employers' organisations, which will thus be able to take part in future in tripartite consultation bodies.

The previous lack of a single national collective agreement and the non-recognition of the employers' organisations has hitherto, it is claimed, fostered the spread in the sector of illegal and underpaid work, as well as forms of exploitation of workers. In the past, national collective agreements have been signed by individual employers' organisations, which have used the outcomes of the negotiations as a form of organisational competition among themselves. In the new single national collective agreement, the parties have committed themselves to defining a framework of regulation of terms and conditions of employment for all companies in the sector. Beyond the immediate contents of the July 2001 agreement, the parties will, by the end of October 2001, define the full details of a single accord for the sector. By 30 September 2003, when the four-year agreement (backdated to October 1999) expires, employers will have to realign their practices on pay and automatic seniority increments.

The agreement provides for an average pay increase of ITL 224,000 (EUR 115) which will be paid in two instalments on 1 October 2001 and 1 October 2002. A one-off payment of ITL 670,000 (EUR 364) will be made in September 2001 to compensate workers for not having been covered by a collective agreement since October 1999. Workers will receive 10 automatic seniority increments for every three years of service in the same office, rather than the current five increments. Automatic seniority increments vary between ITL 20,000 and ITL 57,000, depending on the worker's job classification level.

The agreement establishes a supplementary healthcare insurance fund, to be set up and regulated by a joint technical commission. Employers will pay ITL 30,000 per employee per month into the fund from 1 March 2002.

Mario Piovesan, the national secretary of Fisascat-Cisl, stated that the single agreement was a historic landmark, and that the assumption of responsibility by the sector's employers, which is implied by the extension of the July 1993 intersectoral agreement to cover professional offices, is an advance in the fight against illegal work and the underground economy.