Agreement for road haulage, deliveries and logistic sector deals with e-commerce

Download article in original language : IT0009360FIT.DOC

Although Italy is not a leader in the development of the "new economy", the phenomenon is beginning to affect the organisation of firms and industrial relations, and employment in this area is growing rapidly. The trade unions are responding by seeking to use collective bargaining to regulate more tightly the employment relationships of the workers involved. A new agreement for the road haulage, deliveries and logistics sector, signed in July 2000, regulates the working time of employees in activities connected with "e-commerce".

In Italy, as elsewhere, the "new economy" - based on new information and communication technologies - is causing profound changes in firms. In some companies - which can be considered as "points of excellence" - the internet and the new information technologies are radically changing organisational structure and ways of doing business. This is the case for firms operating in high-technology sectors with high rates of product and process innovation, such as telecommunications, information technology and car components. In the majority of firms, however, the potential of the new technologies has not yet been fully exploited. In general, Italy and Europe generally are well known to be lagging behind the USA in the area of new technology and the new economy. Although the situation is changing and there are signs of rapid acceleration, Italy has a relatively low proportion of computers per household (in 1999, 25% of households owned a computer, according to Assinform), and use of the internet is not widespread (it is estimated by the : Federcomin communications and computer employers' organisation that there were 4.6 million internet "users" in Italy at the end of 1999). Moreover, the small size of firms sometimes hampers the introduction of new technologies. Finally, expenditure on research is lower in Italy than in many other industrialised countries.

The new economy's impact on employment and industrial relations

The new economy seems bound to have a positive impact on employment in Italy. According to an April 2000 report from Federcomin, entitled Net economy and new employment (Net Economy e nuova occupazione) in 1999 employment in the new economy (both dependent employees and self-employed workers) amounted to around 1,280,000, while the estimated figure for 2000 is approximately 1,313,000. Between 1997 and 2000, around 94,000 new jobs were created in this sector, a growth of 7.7%. The expansion of employment, however, has been hampered by skill shortages: according to Federcomin, the shortfall of personnel able to work in the new economy (for example, systems engineers, programmers, web masters, web designers and experts in "e-business" and networking) can be estimated at around 112,000 people, which is equivalent to 11% of the sector's labour force, and the amount is bound to increase. In order to deal with this problem, the Italian government is setting up specific training programmes.

The new economy is also having an impact on industrial relations. A significant development has been the conclusion of the first national sectoral agreement for telecommunications in June 2000 (IT0007158F).

Agreement for road haulage, deliveries and logistics

The Italian road haulage, deliveries and logistics sector, which is notable for its high degree of fragmentation, is currently undergoing major change. In 1997, there were 160,000 transport companies in Italy, and 59% of them had no more than three vehicles (only 6% possessed more than 50), and the average number of employees was 1.5 per company. Crucial issues in the sector are safety, protection of the environment, and the strong international competition from both countries with lower labour costs and large firms able to offer integrated logistics and transport services. Moreover, since the spring and summer of 2000 a further problem has been the rising price of fuel.

A first collective agreement for the whole sector, covering the three branches of road haulage, deliveries and logistics, was signed on 18 July 2000. These three activities tend to be increasingly integrated.

As well as the unification of the three branches, a further innovation in the agreement is its regulation of working time for workers in activities related to "e-commerce". Although on-line business is still relatively rare in Italy, it is bound to introduce profound changes in the road haulage, deliveries and logistic sector and push towards a greater deregulation of the employment relationship. The ability to deliver orders rapidly is one of the keys to success in e-commerce, and it requires round-the-clock operations, given that customers can make orders from home at any hour of the day or night, or they may live in countries in different time-zones.

The agreement provides for the introduction of "multi-period" working hours: that is, work schedules that vary between periods of higher and lower activity. However, these schedules must be drawn up, discussed with trade unions and notified to the workers in good time, so that it is possible to calculate the hours to be paid as overtime. The average working week is 38 hours (calculated over a four-week reference period) distributed from Monday to Saturday, with a minimum of 30 hours and a maximum of 48. Two rest days must be guaranteed every two weeks. The number of hours worked in a day must fall between a minimum of five and a maximum of 10, and workers are entitled to all the breaks provided by the law for workers who use video-display units. The multi-period hours arrangement will apply only to personnel hired for work related to e-commerce after 1 July 2000.

Commentary

The new economy profoundly affects the organisational structure of firms and their way of doing business. It accentuates pressures for "lean" organisational models in which firms concentrate on their core business and tend to outsource functions/activities considered to be less strategic. As a consequence of these changes, the boundaries of firms and among sectors tend to become increasingly blurred.

As far as industrial relations are concerned, a key issue is which sectoral collective agreement is to be applied to worker in the new economy. Some firms tend to apply those agreements that are more favourable to them. As a consequence, the area of application of an agreement is becoming more and more important. At least on the basis of what has happened in telecommunications and road haulage, deliveries and logistics, the tendency is toward single sectoral agreements for wider sectors. In this way, the fragmentation characteristic of collective bargaining in certain sectors can be overcome.

Another crucial issue is defining worker protection rules in the new economy, one of whose main features is "destructuring". "Atypical" work, for example, is particularly widespread. The new working time rules for e-commerce workers show that destructuring does not necessarily mean deregulation. What is important is the definition, by means of collective bargaining, of flexible rules which meet the needs of both firms and workers. (Marco Trentini, Ires Lombardia)