News

On the night of March 28th, 2014 the Italian Ministries of Labour and Education, company representatives and the trade union confederations CGIL, CISL and UIL and sector federations, Filcams, Fisascat and Uiltrasporti reached an agreement to safeguard the employment of workers with previous contracts including those of former LSU (Socially Useful work). After several months of negotiation, thanks to the commitment of all involved parties the security of employment and income of these workers was protected.

This framework agreement ends complex litigation involving more than 24,000 workers with contracts previously used in cleaning services in about 4200 public schools and for which March 31, 2014 would have been the expiry date for yet another extension of the funding of the awarded tenders. The agreement effectively restores the initial state of industrial relations of 2013, thus avoiding the feared reduction of employment in the sector, and includes the following objectives; maintenance of cleaning services, new services and the launch of active labour market policies for training and professional courses for workers, aimed at increasing the skills needed to carry out the new tasks.

Funds have now been earmarked for 2014 and 2015, as well as for a part of 2016, for the cleaning of schools as well as further restoration work and functionality of school buildings. The Ministry of Education will identify procedures for the allocation of resources, inform the social partners, and furthermore, negotiating tables will be set up at both regional and territorial level in order to monitor the progress and success of the planned interventions.

Elisa Camellini, Filcams national secretary engaged in the dispute, said, "Finally we have been able to achieve not just a temporary solution, but the commitment to a real business plan, and more importantly, the restoration of the previous contractual conditions which were negated as a result of calls for tender and the reduction in services. We have now identified activities that will improve the condition of school facilities in which workers will be engaged."