On 22 September 2009, an accord was signed renewing the industry-wide agreement for the food industry. This is the first sectoral agreement signed by all three trade union confederations since the rift caused by the interconfederal agreement of January 2009 on changes to the collective bargaining structure. The new accord provides for pay and legal aspects. The social partners have welcomed the settlement, citing it as a model for other sectors to follow.
The agreement signed on 22 September 2009 by the trade unions and employer organisation in the food industry covers about 450,000 workers and comes four months after the expiry of the previous agreement and follows 16 hours of strike action in the sector. The signatory parties comprised the:
This accord thus assumes great importance as the first industry-wide agreement (contratto collettivo nazionale di lavoro, CCNL) signed jointly by all three trade union confederations since the rift in January 2009 between the General Confederation of Italian Workers (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, Cgil), on the one hand, and the Italian Confederation of Workers’ Trade Unions (Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori, Cisl) and the Union of Italian Workers (Unione Italiana del Lavoro, Uil), on the other. These tensions arose over a reform of the collective bargaining system (IT0904029I, IT0905029I). The settlement reached by the agri-food trade unions therefore sets a good example for industries such as metalworking where negotiations on agreement renewals are taking place on separate bargaining platforms.
The food industry agreement contains innovative aspects in both its pay and legal parts, including the extension of the agreement’s validity from 36 to 40 months.
The settlement provides for a wage increase of 8.02% (€142 a month for the three-year period) paid in four instalments: €45.44 gross from 1 October 2009, €42.60 gross from 1 April 2010, €28.40 gross from 1 April 2011 and €25.56 gross from 1 June 2011. Added to this increase is a lump-sum payment of €227.20 to cover the collective agreement gap – that is, the period between the expiry of the agreement in May 2009 and its renewal.
Moreover, the parties agreed that supplementary bargaining at sectoral, regional or group level should be encouraged as a means of increasing wages. Workers in companies that do not engage in collective bargaining should receive a pay increment of €25 a month, compared with €24 in the previous agreement.
The legal or normative innovations concern social welfare in terms of health insurance and income support, as well as gender policies, health and safety, and greater job security for those in precarious work. More specifically, the agreement stipulates the provisions outlined below.
The reactions of the social partners have been very positive, as the agreement precedes the renewal of other sectoral agreements – in the metalworking, chemicals, telecommunications and tourism industries – where negotiations appear difficult and the trade union front is split.
The President of Federalimentare, Giandomenico Auricchio, highlighted the benefits of the extension to the agreement’s validity: ‘with expiry on 30 September 2012, the agreement has been extended so that bargaining can resume after the summer, one of the most delicate periods for our sector’. For their part, the trade unions expressed satisfaction with the wage increases and with the innovations in the agreement’s legal part. The Secretary of Flai-Cgil, Stefania Crogi, emphasised that the pay increase had been agreed on an index different from that anticipated by the Confederation of Italian Industry (Confederazione Generale dell’Industria Italiana, Confindustria), Cisl and Uil in the separate agreement of January 2009 (IT0904029I); this development would help to restore purchasing power. The leaders of Cisl and Uil, Raffaele Bonanni and Luigi Angeletti, declared that this agreement renewal is the model to follow in restoring trade union unity in other sectors as well.
The next few months will show whether the negotiations still ongoing in the metalworking, chemicals, tourism and telecommunications industries will follow the model of the unanimous agreement for agri-food workers, or whether they will conclude with separate agreements. However, it is not a good omen that negotiations in these sectors are proceeding on separate bargaining platforms, whereas in the food industry the renewal came about on the basis of a platform shared by all three main trade unions.
Cristina Tajani, Fondazione Seveso