Cgil, Cisl and Uil and Confindustria have reached an agreement on trade union representation and democracy. The leaders of the trade unions Susanna Camusso, Raffaele Bonanni, Luigi Angeletti and the president of the industrialists, Giorgio Squinzi, signed the agreement after 4 hours of discussions.
The agreement had been awaited for decades and marks the end of the separate agreements between the unions and Confindustria. In fact, with the signature, new rules are established to measure the representativeness of the various trade union organizations and to give certainty to the agreements.
As for the measurement of representation, for the purposes of determining the weight of each trade union organization, which determines the possibility of sitting at the tables for contractual renewals, the trade union delegations are valid in the first place (withheld by the employer on the explicit mandate of the worker) communicated by the employer to INPS and certified by the Institute itself; the votes collected by each individual trade union organization in the election of the Unitary Union Representatives (RSU) in office (valid for 36 months; the number of members and the vote for the RSUs will weigh 50% each; these two data, members and vote, will be communicated to an external certifying body which will proceed, for each CCNL, to determine the calculation of the representation of each trade union organization; the RSUs will be elected with a vote proportional to the votes obtained, thus exceeding 1/3 destined for the trade union organizations signing national contracts, and there is a commitment to renew those expired in the following six months. The agreement also contains a paragraph on the validity and enforceability of national contracts. In fact, the agreement establishes rules that determine the methods by which to make enforceable, for both contracting parties, the national contract.This is, for the first time in the history of union relations in our country, a formalized procedure shared by both parties.
«A historic agreement, which puts an end to a long season of divisions»: this is how Susanna Camusso defines the agreement on representation. "I am very satisfied. It is a historic agreement because after sixty years there is an agreement that regulates the relationships with which to have fully enforceable national contracts» underlines the leader of Confindustria, Giorgio Squinzi. "In a moment of crisis this is a tangible sign of the cohesion between the social partners to rediscover the growth that for us is an absolute imperative" concludes Squinzi.
«The agreement between Confindustria and the unions positively closes the problem of certifying the representation and representativeness of the unions and opens up a perspective of unitary work on democratic rules while a season of reforms has begun in Parliament. It's a good signal for everyone»: so the national secretary of the Democratic Party, Guglielmo Epifani.
