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Equal pay conditions for workers. And equal conditions for companies participating in tenders. In environmental services, which concern the wide spectrum of activities ranging from sweeping and waste collection, up to their treatment and recycling, the publication of the single table by the Ministry of Labour, through directorial decree no. 14 of last 19 March, represents the seal of the contractual unification process that began in 2017. The first stage was the contract signed in 2019 where, however, there was still an employer’s signature off the table, which was reunited with the subsequent contract, signed in 2022 The entire unitary process culminated with the single table thanks to which, now, there will be a single point of reference for the average hourly cost of labor for workers and employees of businesses and companies that carry out environmental services. And, given that companies participate in tenders, with the single table the impasse for the awarding commissions that must award the contract is overcome.
The single table of labor costs
The ministerial document formalizes the agreement between employers’ and trade unions’ associations which was reached in 2022 and which was signed for the employers’ side by Confindustria Cisambiente, Utilitalia, Confcooperative, Legacoop, Assoambiente with the unions Fp Cgil, Fit Cisl, Uiltrasporti and Fiadel. With the 2022 renewal agreement, the unification of the contract was achieved, overcoming the old condition which provided for two for environmental workers, with many complications for companies and for tenders.
A year and a half has passed since the signing of the 2022 contract, in which the signatory parties together with the Ministry of Labor and the undersecretary Claudio Durigon, defined the single table on the average hourly cost for workers which was long awaited by operators in the sector and which offers a very important technical tool for businesses. When participating in tenders, the single table allows us to overcome the confusion generated by the pre-existing situation where it was necessary to resort to continuous and uncomfortable comparisons of data.
The real factory pact
As the general director of Confindustria Cisambiente, Lucia Leonessi, explains, «it is the culmination of a long discussion between the parties which involved the other associations and which allowed us to obtain a single contract, the result of a notable effort because it It’s about standardizing the needs of all associations.” The goal of the single table, continues Leonessi, «is fundamental in the context of the world of Italian work because it represents the true factory agreement, the union of an entire sector with a single cost center: an important result for an area, such as of environmental services, where the tender is based on dynamics relating precisely to service costs”.
In the tenders there will be only one reference contract
Negotiation in the environmental services sector, where over 100 thousand people work, embraces the idea of valorising the contracts that have greater relevance and representativeness, thus qualifying the contracts themselves. And making it possible to work better in a context that is increasingly strategic with the ecological transition and which is in a phase of development. Paola Giuliani, director of the work area of Utilitalia, which represents publicly controlled companies – which are also contracting authorities – explains that «all the subjects in the sector participate in the tenders and the single sector contract was also a very important objective of ours. important, due to the fact that we are involved in tenders and contracts. Having a single contract means that the tenders are not all about competition on the man factor and labor costs, but also on the organizational one. The single table is certainly an expression of contractual unification because there would not be a single table if there were not a single contract behind it. The unification process was very complex, because it brought together several contracts, each of which had its own history. There were many differences to homogenize, both on the economic and regulatory sides. After having signed the renewal of the contract in 2022, the actual contract will also be signed in May.” A further step for the sector because with the consolidated text «all economic operators in the sector will be able to recognize themselves in this contract which will then become the contract par excellence for those who participate in the tenders, given that a contract and the contract must be indicated for the contracting authority it will be exactly this. All this will make the races more homogeneous.”