Welfare and pensions fund agreement signed in building sector

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In December 1998, an agreement was signed which unifies the "Special Construction Workers' Funds" for the industrial and artisan sectors of the Italian building industry. The agreement also promotes worker mobility between companies in the industry and establishes a single national supplementary occupational pensions fund.

On 18 December 1998, employers' organisations and trade unions in the construction industry signed an agreement which provides for the unification of the existing "Special Construction Workers' Funds" (Casse Edili) for both the industrial and artisan sectors of the industry and the creation of a single national fund for supplementary occupational pensions. On the employers' side, the signatories represented both the industrial sector of the industry (Ance) and the artisan sector (Confartigianato, Cna, Casa and Claai), while the union side signatories were the construction workers' federations of the three main confederations (Feneal-Uil,Filca-Cisl and Fillea-Cgil)

Over the past 50 years Special Construction Workers' Funds (Casse Edili) have been created by collective agreement to protect workers in the building industry. These Casse Edili, financed by contributions from both workers and employers, provide assistance, welfare services and income support to workers in case of bad weather or lack of work. Separate funds have existed for the industrial sector and for the artisan sector.

In Italy, as elsewhere Europe, the building sector is experiencing an increasing fragmentation of companies and the development of activities which depends mainly upon cyclical and seasonal conditions. In Italy, these developments mean that it is possible for workers to change job several times during their working lives, often moving from an industrial company to an artisanal one and vice versa. In cases of such moves from one sector of the industry to the other, the workers had until now lost all the contributions that had been paid into the Cassa Edile covering their former employer. The various funds had no mutual agreement, because of organisational competition among the employers' organisations of the industrial and artisan sectors.

This non-mutuality was also true for a particular form of seniority allowance, called the APE (Anzianità Professionale Edile, APE), which is paid to construction workers when they have worked 2,100 hours over a two-year period. Moreover, on retirement workers are given a "special" APE payment: the average of the last eight APE payments, multiplied by a fixed coefficient in order to give a form of severance pay in addition to the normal end-of-service allowance (Trattamento di fine rapporto, TFR). Until now, the working hours used to calculate entitlement to the ordinary and special APE payments could not be added together if they were worked in different sectors of the industry.

The new agreement resolves these various problems and establishes the mutuality of the services provided by the separate Casse. Workers' acquired rights are transferred from one Cassa to another in case of mobility between the industrial and artisan sectors. Indeed, the agreement changes the old situation completely because it sets out procedures to create a single Cassa Edile in each geographical area. At national level, the industrial funds are more widespread and coordinated than the artisanal ones, which tend to have a greater presence at local level.

In those areas where there are only industrial Casse, the agreement will be implemented by local accords. The committee responsible for the management of these funds will be expanded to include representatives of the artisan sector. As regards the management of the funds' various bodies and of their national committees, representatives of artisanal employers' associations will make up a third of the employers' representatives in each body.

In those areas where there are both artisanal and industrial "Casse," these will be merged within 180 days from the signature of the agreement. Within a month the national organisations will have to meet to verify both the financial situation and operational structures of each "fund" and the position of each worker. Such verification will be carried out with the assistance of a certification body.

An overall national commission composed of nine members, including employers' and workers' representatives, has been established to monitor and solve any implementation problems which may arise. In all cases, the outcomes of local agreements will have to be notified to the national commission.

Finally, the agreement make an important new provision which brings the situation of construction workers into line with that of workers in industry. It establishes a single national supplementary occupational pensions fund (IT9806228F) for the sector's workers, the characteristics of which were to agreed on by the partners before 31 January 1999.