As at 30 June 2021 i national collective agreements are 985, up on the previous quarter by 3,7% and by 5,3% on June 2020, despite the health emergency due to Covid-19. Of these, 61,9% are past due. This is what emerges from the latest issue of News on the Labor Market and National Archive of Collective Agreements of the CNEL which collects the list of agreements in force, including the dates of stipulation, effective date and expiry, as well as the contracting parties.
In detail, with the exception of public employment, the sectors in which the highest percentage of expired contracts are recorded are: Credit and Insurance (85,7%), Printing and Entertainment (81,8%), Construction (72%). With reference to the expiry date established in the individual texts and with respect to the documents deposited in the Archive, it should be noted that there are 69 contracts which expired in the first half of 2021 and have not yet been renewed, as well as another 81 which will expire in the second half of 2021 and 117 which expire expected in 2022.
Currently, with the inclusion of the agreements received during the semester, 6.053 documents relating to national bargaining are collected in the CNEL Archive. Of these, 2.003 make up the current archive and 4.050 the historical archive.
Furthermore, among the topics covered in the Newsletter, we highlight that of falling birth rate; the impact of Sostegni-bis on work, the new National Collective Labor Agreement for the small and medium engineering industry; the effects of the pandemic on gender inequalities; data on public employee pensions and the usual regulatory review.
“We cannot talk about PNRR and recovery without starting from expired contracts and the quality of working conditions, including economic conditions, of the workers, which are now outdated. A good starting point can be the new contract for metalworkers. There are over 10 million workers with expired contracts. The renewal could give impetus to a new contractual season, which can no longer be postponed, also because the employment effects of the PNRR, not only according to the CNEL, are uncertain and lower than that declared in the plans of other countries", wrote the President Tiziano Treu, in the editorial of the new issue of the Newsletter.
"The crises of recent years up to 2020 have shown that the national social protection systems in force up to now are unable to respond to the new social criticalities and must be supported by common resources and guidelines from the European Union - continued Treu -. The exceptional nature of the moment requires the courage to innovate even in social policies, as has been done in the choices of Next Generation EU. We need a qualitative leap that is reflected in the very conception of the quality and functions of a welfare suitable for future generations".
Finally, the President of CNEL underlined how the initiatives undertaken during the emergency (for example the SURE), “must be made structural and accompanied by the finalization of the other interventions contained in the action plan and proposed by the European Commission. These initiatives are also a useful stimulus to rethink the structures of our national welfare, starting with the Italian one which has shown many fragility and inadequacies".
