2020 was, among other things, the annus horribilis of productivity bargaining. After the other indicators (growth and employment) this too now comes to confirm what pressure the pandemic emergency has represented for workers’ incomes. In fact, the latest numbers of the periodic report on deposited contracts, published last March 14 by the Ministry of Labor, allow a complete analysis that goes back to 2016, (since the ministry made available the procedure for the electronic filing of company contracts and territorial), until today.
The numbers
However, if we consider the entire years (2016 starts in May) that is the period 2017-2021, we will see, after a three-year period that definitely exceeds ten thousand contracts deposited, even in 2018 they reach 12,099 agreements, the sharp collapse in 2020: yes it went from 11,615 contracts the previous year to 6,784, almost a halving. What happened? Predictably in the face of a situation with uncertain prospects, companies have slowed down in anticipation of brightening. An attitude of caution that has continued, almost in line with the pandemic trend for all of 2021. In fact, bargaining has resumed but the numbers are still far from the boom year 2018. An attitude of caution that seems to be still taking place in these first three months of 2022: the 492 contracts deposited in January, the 455 in February and the 236 in March are quite below the monthly trend of the previous years: January 2022 is in fact not comparable to January 2017 (882 agreements deposited) nor to 2018 (762) or to 2019 (814) but it is even below the performance of January 2021 which marked 547 agreements. The 236 contracts in March are not represented at the moment because they only concern the first days of the month.
I nodi
What then should we expect? And above all, on what instruments could one intervene to support bargaining? Also because the increase in production costs due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict is reducing and, in many cases, eliminating the resources of companies aimed at disbursing performance bonuses. In this context, a challenge opens up for companies: how to comply with the stringent regulatory constraints which provide – as a necessary condition for the application of the facilitating provisions provided for by Law 208 of 2015 – that the disbursement of performance bonuses is subject to obtaining of increases in efficiency, productivity, profitability, innovation and quality?
The regulatory framework holds up but the news suggests a process of modernization of the instruments. For example, it would be useful to be able to easily subordinate the disbursement of performance bonuses to the improvement of environmental sustainability: during the war it could also accelerate the process of regionalization of the economy, pushing companies to change the location of production chains and systems of procurement of energy resources and raw materials and also to develop products in a logic of circular economy. It could also be used as an indicator the improvement of management inspired by ethical principles and fairness in the various forms such as, for example, the reduction of the gender pay gap, greater transparency of business decisions and choices, the protection of minorities and the implementation of gender equality policies. And finally, the disbursement of bonuses could be envisaged only following an improvement in the impact and relationship of the company with the territory in which it is based or, more generally, with the communities with which it operates or enters into a relationship.