JOINT PRESS RELEASE ABI, ANIA, Confcommercio, Confcooperative, Confindustria and Legacoop

Procurement: employers' associations write a joint letter to the Environment and Labour Committees of the House and Senate on the criteria for representation

Four corrective measures proposed by Abi, Ania, Confcommercio, Confcooperative, Confindustria and Legacoop

Rome, 30 November 2024 - Abi, Ania, Confcommercio, Confcooperative, Confindustria and Legacoop have signed a joint letter addressed to the Environment and Labour Committees of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, to propose four shared criteria to be applied to the corrective legislative decree of the 'Public Procurement Code', aimed at identifying the most representative employer associations in an adequate and objective manner.

According to the signatories, the following aspects should be taken into account:

1. the 'seniority' of the association, both in terms of its historical presence in the industrial relations landscape and in terms of collective bargaining also recognised by the institutions;

2. the number of employment relationships governed, within each production sector or per form of enterprise, by a given collective bargaining agreement. This figure is particularly important for the purposes of representativeness, as it is not based solely on whether or not the company is a member;

3. the association's membership/participation in European and/or international representative bodies. This is an aspect that qualifies the association since the labour order finds a large part of its sources in the European Union discipline;

4. the joint presence, in the agreements/contracts signed by the employers' associations, of forms of supplementary social security, supplementary health care and vocational training funds that give rise to a structured contractual welfare system, with a network of worker protection that goes beyond the mere pay aspect.

The proposals for intervention in the corrective decree aim to 'identify quality collective bargaining, which can be taken as a reference in specific production contexts as it regulates, by form of enterprise - in addition to the traditional wage aspect - also a more comprehensive scope of issues such as health protection, training and welfare,' reads one of the passages of the letter.

"23 March 2023