Strike within the local public transport sector

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On Friday, 15 July 2005 local public transport workers went on strike in support of their demand for payment when on sick leave. The local public transport companies Association unilaterally decided to reduce the sick pay provisions of the national collective labour contract.

The 24-hour strike called on 25 July 2005 by the Italian Transport Federation (Federazione italiana trasporti, Fit-Cisl), the Italian Transport Workers' Federation (Federazione italiana lavoratori trasporti, Filt-Cgil) and the Union of Italian Transport Workers (Unione italiana dei lavoratori dei trasporti, Uiltrasporti-Uil) attracted huge support from its 115,000 members. This strong support for the strike was confirmed both by the trade unions and the transport companies themselves.

This strike - the third in four months - was called after the breakdown of talks with the representatives of the 1,260 transport companies on 28 June. At the heart of this dispute is the question of sick pay. Under the 2005 Finance Act, the Italian government provided that part of the sick pay cost should be paid by employers and no longer be the liability of the social security system. For the law provides that payment for the first three days of sickness should be partly by the Social Security agencies, and partly by employers. This increased the cost burden on companies by EUR 68 million, impacting negatively on their balance sheets. These companies are already suffering from a structural deficit which is bridged by financing from the local authorities. This deficit is the prime reason for the heightened trade union conflict in the industry. It took more than four months of negotiations to renew the latest national collective labour contract, plus nine general strikes, which paralysed the public services in Italian cities. (IT0412101N). At the end of May, the employers organisations, Associazione delle aziende pubbliche di trasporto locale (Asstra), announced that from 1 July 2005 the companies it represented would no longer give employees the sick pay to which they were entitled under the national labour contract.

With this decision by the employers, the workers' wages fell by 33% during the first three days of sick leave.

Calling the strike, Fit-Cisl, Filt-Cgil and Uiltrasporti urged companies reopen the debate in order to try to reach an agreement. Walter Baricevic, national secretary of Fit-Cisl, Franco Nasso, national secretary of Filt-Cgil, and Santino Fortino, national secretary of Uiltrasporti, declared their readiness to sign an agreement with the employers to redress the rules, by making transport workers pay and conditions equivalent to those of industrial workers. According to the trade unions, Asstra 'has not shown any interest in negotiating, ignoring the serious problems that the travelling public and citizens will at all events have to cope with'.

In a communication on 15 July, Asstra said that it had not taken up the trade union proposals because 'they fail to take account of the real state of the industry, in which companies and the local authorities are in great difficulty'.

Conflict in the local transport industry has been heightened by the unilateral decisions taken by the employers' Association and the government's decision not to act directly to help resolve the standoff, thereby providing substantial support to the employers' position.

The continuing dispute will inevitably heighten the impact of the strikes on public opinion as travellers have to increasingly cope with frequent interruptions of the public transport services.

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