More than 350,000 workers in the modern retail trade and cooperative distribution sectors will be on strike. The strike, called jointly by the sector unions Filcams Cgil, Fisascat Cisl, and Uiltucs, is aimed at pushing for progress in the negotiations for the renewal of the national labor contracts.
The approximately 300,000 workers employed throughout Italy in modern retail distribution have been waiting four years for the finalization of their first national labor agreement. Negotiations with the national trade association Federdistribuzione have been stalled for nearly a year, having unilaterally decided, in July 2017, to award pay raises far below the agreed-upon national agreements already renewed with trade associations Confcommercio and Confesercenti.
According to the union press release issued to workplaces, Fisascat Cisl states that "the problems of large-scale retail workers are not solved with unilateral payments, but with agreements signed by the parties that establish common and structural rules for the category and the sector, while also taking responsibility for addressing the challenges that the market imposes on companies." Unilateral measures undermine the role of work and fail to recognize the dignity of the hard-working contributions that workers make to their businesses every day, often with hours and days, often holidays and Sundays, removed from social life and family ties.
Furthermore, approximately 70,000 workers in the Coop distribution system have been unable for four years to "count on the legitimate and sacrosanct wage increases that their colleagues employed by companies affiliated with Confcommercio and Confesercenti have received," states the Fisascat Cisl union statement. "It therefore appears unjustified and unfair that, for a purely ideological vision of their negotiating role," the union statement continues, "the national associations of cooperative enterprises systematically avoid a serious discussion on the merits to renew a national labor contract for the category." This is especially true because "those who claim to be a company different from others and attentive to social issues, deny the very women and men who work daily to consolidate this business model in the economy and the country fair compensation for their work."
"The negotiating landscape," stated National General Secretary Pierangelo Raineri, "is further complicated by the fragmentation of the negotiating tables, and the stalemate in negotiations is exacerbated by the cancellation of the supplementary sectoral bargaining agreement, which has resulted in the loss of wage components for service sector employees, where disputes and redundancy procedures have increased in recent years." "For Fisascat CISL," concluded the union representative, "it is unthinkable that the price of the crisis of recent years will fall exclusively on workers, for whom the renewal of national contracts can no longer be postponed. These contracts must define decent wage increases, in line with the renewals already signed, but also strengthen measures related to supplementary welfare, a consolidated experience that has proven positive for all sectors of the private service sector."
For the workers of the Modern Organized Distribution and the Cooperative Distribution, the situation is unsustainable and has the taste of a mockery; the application and renewal of the Collective Labor Agreement are sacrosanct rights of all workers and an essential objective for the union - states Luca Benfenati, Secretary General of Fisascat Ferrara and - we therefore anticipate - he concludes - that the presence of Fisascat Ferrara will be highly visible and active both on the occasion of the necessary information meetings and of the subsequent initiatives to be carried out on the occasion of the strike day that will be identified and communicated shortly.
