Social dialogue and the public
services in the aftermath of the
economic crisis: strengthening
partnership in an era of austerity
in Italy
National report
Lorenzo Bordogna and Stefano Neri,
Dept. of Social and Political Sciences,
University of Milan
November 2012
European Commission project
Coordinated by Professor Stephen Bach, King’s College, London
‘Industrial Relations and Social Dialogue’
VP/2011/001
Table of Contents
Summary .................................................................................................................................... 1
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 3
Public sector structure and size............................................................................................... 3
Trade unions ............................................................................................................................ 5
Social dialogue: main features, historic background, recent developments .......................... 8
2. Economic crisis and austerity programs ............................................................................. 13
3. a The austerity measures for local government ................................................................. 15
3. b The case studies ................................................................................................................ 18
The Modena municipality ........................................................................................................ 19
The impact of the austerity measures: critical issues and current adjustments .................. 21
The social dialogue: towards a “dialogue of the deaf” ........................................................ 24
The Sesto San Giovanni municipality ...................................................................................... 26
The impact of the austerity measures: critical issues and current adjustments .................. 27
The social dialogue: from cooperation to instability? .......................................................... 30
Comparison ........................................................................................................................... 32
4. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 33
References ............................................................................................................................... 36
List of Tables
Table 1: Public service employment in Italy – permanent employees and employees with
flexible contracts
Table 2: Union membership and union density (all organisations) in Italy, 1996 – 2006
Table 3: Union members and Rsu votes in the Regions and local authorities sector (2012)
Table 4: Number and population of Italian municipalities
Table 5: Elections for the unitary workplace representation bodies – 2012 and 2007
Table 6: Employment levels in Modena municipality (2002-2012, staff with permanent and
temporary employment contract)
Table 7. Percentage of personnel expenditure on total current expenditure
Table 8: Elections of workplace unitary representation bodies (2012 and 2007)
Table 9: Employment levels in Sesto San Giovanni municipality and employees with
permanent contract (2002-12; ‘dotazione organica’)
Table 10: Ratio between personnel expenditure and current expenditure
List of Figures
Figure 1. Bargaining units and bargaining agents, at various levels
Summary
Italy has one of the largest cumulated public debt in the European Union, second only to
that of Germany in absolute terms and to that of Greece as percentage of GDP, around 127
percent in the third trimester of 2012, up from 103.1 in 2007; after the country entered the
Euro, it was never below 100 percent. As for the budget deficit, from a modest 1.6% of GDP
in 2007, it rose to 5.4% in 2009 to decrease to 4.6% in 2010 and below 3% in 2012, one of
the lowest in the Euro-zone, with a significant primary surplus. After the measures adopted
by the Monti government in December 2011 and in 2012, under the pressures of the EU
Commission and the ECB, it is expected to further decrease in 2013, close to balance in
structural terms, with a primary surplus around 4 percent.
Italy has also a long tradition in public sector social dialogue, however imprecise the
analytical meaning of this expression is. When the system of unilateral regulation of terms
and conditions of employment prevailed, through the 1950s, the 1960s and partly the 1970s,
social dialogue assumed the form of an intense involvement of trade unions in the (co-)
management of internal labour market matters – recruitment, internal mobility, careers,
disciplinary matters, etc.. When, partly in the 1980s and definitely from the 1993, collective
bargaining became the main method to regulate the employment relationship of the large
majority of public employees, who at the same time lost their public law statute and the
special guarantees attached to it, an intense negotiation activity both at central, national
level and at the firm (individual administration) level has been the rule. Since the late 1950s
the sector has also always been highly unionized, with currently an overall density rate
around 45-48 percent, 15-18 percentage points higher than in the private sector. Since
a1997 legislation, legally based workplace representation bodies (rsu) are regularly elected
about every three years in each public bureau with more than 15 employees. The last
election was held in March 2012. As in many industrialised democracies, public sector is
nowadays the stronghold of the Italian trade union movement (Visser, 2006). Membership
has however declined by about 5 percent since 2008, something more than the decline in
employment levels.
When the crisis arrived in late 2007 and then exploded in the following years, Italy was
forced to adopt severe programs to control budget deficit and to reduce public debt. This
was pursued in successive steps through a varying mix of tax increases and expenditures
cuts. Among the latter type of measures, public services and public sector employment at
large have been a crucial target of government policies: levels of employment, wage and
salary increases, pension systems have all been the object of repeated measures adopted by
the government.
Another privileged target of government policies have been the expenditures of the regional
and local government authorities (Regions, municipalities, provinces). Despite of, or along
with, a process of regional decentralization which goes back to the early 1970s and a
reorganization of territorial autonomies in the early 1990s, reinforced by a constitutional
reform in 2001, since 1998 the budget policies of these decentralized entities are
constrained within the tight rules of the so called Internal Stability Pact (ISP), linked to the
EU Stability and Growth Pact (see infra, section 6). Within this institutional framework,
financial transfers from the center to local authorities have been severely cut in recent years
1
while at the same time local authorities’ expenditures have been subject to notably stricter
rules than in the past. This gave often rise to strong tensions between central government
and the associations of local authorities - the Conference of the Regions and the national
association of municipalities and provinces (ANCI and UPI) - occasionally creating the
opportunity for alliances between these organizations and trade unions against central
government policies. In effect, also this very important component of government austerity
programs has severely affected, along with the provision of local public services,
employment levels and working conditions of a significant part of public employees (public
employees of local authorities are about 600 thousand, plus the number of employees of the
organizations to varying degree controlled and funded by local authorities, but not formally
belonging to the public sector in strict terms).
Also public sector social dialogue and public sector employment relations, both at national
and local level, have been hit by government austerity programs in response to the
economic crisis, although with potential differences at the latter level, as it is shown by the
case studies in this report.
It must be stressed, however, that the economic crisis exploded in 2007-08 has not been in
Italy the only reason for reform measures directly targeting public sector employment
relations. This reform process had (also) independent reasons that go back to years
preceding the economic crisis, rooted in the unexpected and problematic effects of the
previous wave of public service employment relations reform, the so called ‘second
privatization’ approved in 1997-98 and implemented in the following years. In those years,
as we will see later, the shortcomings of the regulatory system introduced in 1997-98
became the object of a wide scientific an political debate. This stressed the necessity of
reforming the rules of collective bargaining, especially at decentralized level, as well as of
strengthening both managerial authority on employment relations and HRM matters and
the role of performance management and performance assessment systems (Dell’Aringa
and Della Rocca, 2007; Rusciano, 2005 and 2008; Caruso and Zappalà, 2007; Talamo, 2007;
Zoppoli, 2008; Bordogna, 2007a and 2009b). The new center-right government that arrived
to office in Spring 2008 took on some of the issues raised in this debate, framing them,
however, within a tough rhetoric discourse against the inefficiencies of public sector
employees and the privileges granted them by overly powerful, intrusive trade unions.
Initially, in Summer 2008 and 2009, the reform of public service employment relations
appeared to be linked, and to some extent interconnected, with the first austerity measures
adopted by the government, in a mutually reinforcing process. But when the economic crisis
deepened, the urgent need to protect public finances started to clash with the
implementation process of the reform, substantially freezing some of its main features.
In the following section an overview of public sector structure and size will be provided,
followed by a brief presentation of public sector trade unions and social dialogue
institutions. A general overview of the main austerity measures adopted by the government
in response to the economic crisis will then precede a deeper analysis of the austerity
measures specifically regarding the entire sector of local government in Italy, followed by
the presentation of the case studies carried out in two Italian municipalities. The Appendix
contains a brief summary of the national workshop held at the University of Milan, Faculty of
Political, Economic and Social Sciences, on September 10th, 2012.
2
1. Introduction
Public sector structure and size
Italy is a unitary state, although the fifteen regions with ordinary statute have since the early
1970s rather strong administrative and regulatory powers, further strengthened by a 2001
constitutional reform. The president of each region and the council members are elected by
universal suffrage every four years. These powers are even stronger in the five regions and
two provinces (out of 1091) with special autonomy statute.
Public functions are carried out and public services are provided at different administrative
levels. In particular, at central state level we find ministries, including internal revenue
agencies, police, defence forces, fire-workers, the judiciary, compulsory social security and
public education of all grades, with the main exception of vocational training which is
provided at regional and local government level. Public universities and research institutions
enjoy administrative autonomy but are still nowadays mostly funded by central government.
Regions have wide responsibilities in the organization, management and provision of health
services, although on the base of financial resources transferred by the central government
and within a policy coordination at national level by the Ministry of Health. Social services
are mostly provided at regional and local government level (109 provinces and more than
8,000 municipalities).
At the end of 2010, public administrations, as legally defined according to the legislative
decree 29/19932, employed 3,253,097 persons with permanent employment contract,
including 183 thousand public school teachers with one-year contract, plus 124 thousand
employees with fixed-term, flexible and other forms of temporary contract (Table 1). This
amounted to about 14-15% of the Italian total employment in the same period and around
5.5% of total population - a percentage higher than in Germany but significantly lower than
in France, Britain, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries.
This amount does not include other forms of contingent workers (the so-called co.co.co),
utilized by public administrations, especially in local government and the health sector, but
whose number is hard to estimate, nor the employees of the firms that provide local public
services, partly or fully owned by public local authorities, such as water, energy, garbage
collection, transport, etc., which, from a legal point of view, are not public employees,
1
At the end of October 2012 a decree law (n. 188/2012) was approved by the government to significantly cut
down the number of provinces. If this decree will be converted into a law, in the regions with ordinary statute
they are expected to decrease from 86 to 51 since January 2013, while the 5 regions with special autonomy will
have six more months to adapt the number of provinces to the new legislation. This process has however been
stopped, at least temporarily, by the crisis of the Monti government in mid December 2012.
2
According to the legislative decree 29/1993, public administrations include public schools and educational
institutions of any grade; the autonomous firms of the State (fire-workers and, until 2007, State monopolies
like tobacco); regions, provinces and municipalities; public universities; chambers of commerce and their
associations; all public hospitals and organizations of the National health service; non economic public bodies
at national, regional and local level (mostly social security). The regions are 20 and the provinces 109, including
five regions and two provinces with special autonomy statute; municipalities are more than 8 thousand. Data
on employment levels at the end of 2011 are not yet available; those provided by the Eurostat Labour Force
Survey are not strictly comparable with those presented in Table 1, since the education and health activities
include also private sector providers.
3
although these services are mostly financed by local authorities. Finally, also the employees
of the state railways and postal service, once included within the boundaries of the public
administration, are not considered in Table 1, since these administrations have been
privatized and transformed into joint stock companies respectively in mid-1980s and late
1990s, although the state is still the main or sole shareholder.
As shown in Table 1, the number of public employees started to decline significantly in the
last two years, with some differences across sub-sectors, due to the austerity measures
taken by the government since 2008. This trend has continued in 2011 and 2012, although
official data are not yet available, and is expected to continue in the near future with an
overall decrease of 10 percentage points in 2014 compared with 2008 levels.
Table 1: Public service employment in Italy – permanent employees and employees with
flexible contracts
Service
Permanent employees
Central government(1)
State autonomous firms (firemen and
state monopolies)
Non-economic public bodies (2)
3
Local government ( )
National health service
Public schools (4)
Public universities(5)
Research institutions
Police*
Armed forces*
Judiciary*
Diplomats and Prefects*
Prisons’ Personnel*
Total
Employees with flexible contracts
Fixed-term conracts
Temporary agency contracts
Socially useful work
Training-work contracts
Telework
Total
TOTAL
2007
2008
2009
2010
242715
32865
240983
31982
235990
31695
230330
31586
58641
56365
54910
52950
585942
594922
593439
588168
682197
1145841
116578
15848
331614
141001
10280
2480
494
3366496
689863
1138871
119870
17421
325664
146393
10410
2413
473
3375630
693767
1083568
115913
18186
325376
145675
10486
2334
456
3311795
682183
1052495
111011
18148
320031
146882
10195
2312
432
3253097
112745
11421
24962
4111
1232
154471
105183
10922
21961
3174
1087
142327
92569
11708
20238
2198
1167
127880
90592
12573
18604
801
1389
123959
3520967
3517957
3439675
3377056
(1) Three sub-sectors are included: Ministries, Internal revenues agencies, and Prime Minister’s Office.
) Mostly social security organizations.
(3) Regions, provinces, municipalities, chambers of commerce.
(4) Including teaching personnel with one year contract (183 thousand in 2010, 196 in 2009, 223 thousand in
2008).
(5) Both teaching and non-teaching personnel..
* The employment relationship of the employees of these sectors (plus about 55 thousand university teachers)
has not been ‘privatized’ and ‘contractualized’ by the 1993 reform; they are not under ARAN jurisdiction.
Source: Ministero Economia e Finanze-Ragioneria Generale dello Stato, Conto Annuale, Roma, several years.
4
Trade unions
In Italy there are no legal restrictions on trade union organization for most public employees,
with few qualifications regarding mainly armed forces and, to a lesser degree, police corps.
Since the end of the World-War-II, trade unions have always had sound roots in the Italian
public sector. After a partial decline in the 1950s, aligned with a general decreasing trend,
the membership of public sector unions affiliated to the three main confederations (CGIL,
CISL, UIL)3 started to rise almost constantly since the early 1960s through the early 1980s,
especially in the school sector, health sector, local government and municipalities. Also
railways and the postal service recorded a large increase, before their privatization in the
late 1980s and mid-1990s. The proportion of public sector union members on total
membership (pensioners excluded) of the three largest confederations rose from about 10%
in early 1950s to over 26% in mid 1980s, and is still around 25% in 2012, despite the
privatization processes of previous decades. The density rate in the same period has always
been higher than in the entire economy, arriving at over 50% in mid 1980s only for the three
largest confederations. While union density sharply declined afterwards in the
manufacturing and private sector, in the public sector remained around 50%, including also
the members of the ‘independent’ unions, that is those not affiliated to the largest
confederations, that are very numerous in the public sector. These unions are particularly
strong in the school sector, central government and other minor subsectors, and among
medical doctors and managerial staff in general.
To schematize, three distinctive features characterize public sector unionism compared with
the private sector. First, as just noticed, a significantly higher union density over the entire
post-World-War-II period, which is not only an Italian prerogative nor a recent one (Clegg,
1976; Visser, 2006). In mid-2000s both union membership and density ratio were on the
whole significantly higher than a decade earlier (Table 2). In particular, union density was in
2006 around 50 percent among non-managerial staff, some 15 or more percentage points
higher than in the entire economy, and around 65 percent among managerial staff
(Bordogna and Neri 2011)4. Unionization has however decreased in the following years more
than the decrease in employment, with a density rate around 45%, or a little more, in 2012.
Also the participation rate to the 2012 rsu elections, around 74%, has been lower than in
previous elections.
Second, a much greater organizational fragmentation, well beyond the traditional divisions
along political and ideological lines between the three main Italian trade-union
3
Over the entire post World-War-II period CGIL, CISL and UIL have been the three largest trade union
confederations, traditionally linked, respectively, to the Communist and Socialist party, to the Christian
Democratic party and to other parties on the center-left wing of the political spectrum (socialist, socialdemocrat and repubblican parties). Since mid-sixties, these linkages with political parties have weakened,
while the unity of action among the confederations themselves has generally increased, although with periods
of harsh contrasts.
4
These data refer to public employees with a ‘contractualised’ employment relationship, that is those whose
terms and conditions of employment are determined through collective agreements between representative
trade unions and ARAN, the public Agency that since 1993 legally represents all Italian public administrations in
national level negotiations (with the exceptions of the five regions and two provinces with special autonomy;
see infra).
5
confederations (CGIL, CISL and UIL). Such a fragmentation is due to the presence of many
‘independent’ craft and occupational unions, both among managerial and non-managerial
staff, rooted in the typical professional segmentations of public sector labour market. These
types of organizations often adopt a ‘special interest’ logic of representation (Olson, 1965),
in contrast with the general and encompassing logic of representation that characterizes the
unions affiliated to three largest confederation. Inter-union rivalries and the typical
difficulties of multi-union representation, connected with this fragmentation, have been
dealt with through precise quantitative criteria to select the bargaining agents admitted to
the negotiations and to reach agreements with general validity. These criteria, introduced by
a 1997 legislation, are based on union membership and the election results of legally-based
workplace representation bodies.
Third, an almost universal diffusion of workplace personnel representation bodies, which,
according to the same 1997 legislation, are elected, every three years according to the law,
in each public administration site with more than 15 employees, basically on a similar model
to that introduced in the private sector by a tripartite agreement in July 1993. These
workplace representation bodies have collective bargaining rights at decentralized level, and
a pervasive voice in the management of the internal labour market. Since 1997, elections
with universal suffrage and secret ballots have been held approximately every three-four
years, with a very high participation rate (usually around 75% or higher, partly decreasing in
2012 elections). Important union prerogatives are linked to the results of these elections,
among which the (generous) amount of working time off and paid leaves for union activity.
In the last election, held in March 2012, CGIL obtained something more than 30% of the
votes, CISL about 26-27%, UIL about 17-8%, and the numerous independent unions about
24% overall, but a notably higher percentage in some subsector/bargaining unit (provisional
data). CGIL, that strongly opposed the 2008-2011 center-right government policies on public
service employment relations, slightly improved its previous results, while CISL, which had a
more conciliatory attitude, worsened its position by about 2 percentage points; but the
changes compared to the previous 2007 elections (2006 for the school sector) are overall
limited.
Table 2: Union membership and union density (all organisations) in Italy, 1996 – 2006
Sector
Central
government
Members (a)
Employees
1996
2006
113,106
113,243
Total
Managers
1996
2006
2,634
2,509
Union density (%)
1996
115,740
2006
115,615
Total
Employees
1996 2006
39.5
47.8
Managers
1996 2006
45.8
45.6
1996
39.6
2006
47.8
State
autonomous
firms
25,414
-
205
-
25,619
-
58.4
-
83.7
-
58.5
-
Non-economic
public bodies
39,781
37,438
3,974
3,661
43,755
41,099
61.1
68.2
99.9
99.9
63.3
70.2
6
Local
government
(regions,
provinces,
municipalities)
316,714
242,258
7,704
4,948
86
247,206
48.6
47.9
60.4
49.8
48.8
47.9
National
health service
267,201
287,345
86,720
91,821
353,921
379,166
47.9
52.7
68.2
66.8
51.7
55.6
Public schools
378,669
536,113
-
7,013
378,669
543,126
36.7
47.5
-
68.6
36.7
47.7
University
22,436
25,593
55
70
22,491
25,663
38.2
45.5
47.4
18.4
38.2
45.3
Research
institutions
5,797
10,029
2,735
115
8,532
10,144
47.6
63.9
50.1
75.2
48.4
64
1,169,118
1,252,019
104,027
110,137
1,273,145
1,362,156
43.2
49.5
66.9
65.9
44.5
49.7
Total
(a): Figures refer to deleghe, that is written notifications to the relevant employer undersigned by employees
to check off union dues from their monthly pay. The validity of this subscription lasts until the employee
formally revokes it.
Source: For 1996: Bordogna et al. 1999; for 2006, ARAN and Bordogna and Neri 2011.
Table 3 summarizes the strength of trade unions in the Regions and local authorities subsector in 2012, both with regard to membership (number of subscriptions of union dues) and
votes in the election of the legally based workplace employee representation bodies (rsu). It
shows that only 4 trade unions, out of 132 organizations, have a representativeness higher
than 5%, and are therefore admitted to negotiations at national level, while well 128
organizations are below this threshold. The three strongest unions are affiliated to the
largest Italian trade union confederations, with a prominent role of FP-CGIL; the fourth one
is an independent union. The overall union density rate in the sector is around 34%; the
participation rate to the 2012 rsu election has been around 71%, lower than in previous
elections.
Table 3. Union members and Rsu votes in the Regions and local authorities sector (2012)
a
Membership
%
b
Rsu votes
%
Representativeness
(a+b average)
FP-CGIL
73,758
36.53
150,537
37.84
37.19
FP-CISL
57,297
28.38
114,717
28.84
28.61
FP-UIL
32,801
16.25
68,860
17.31
16,78
CSA-CISAL
12,367
6.13
20,946
5.26
5.70
Others
25,678
12,71
42,776
10.75
(128 organizations)
Total
201,901
100
397,836
100
Membership: number of deleghe (see note to Table 2).
Rsu: legally based workplace employee representation bodies elected in each public administration with more
than 15 employees every 3 years.
Representativeness: average between percentage of members on total membership and percentage of votes
on total votes cast. Organizations with a representativeness of less than 5% are not admitted to national level
negotiations.
Source: our elaborations on Aran data
7
Social dialogue: main features, historic background, recent developments
The institutions of public sector social dialogue, still operating nowadays, are the result of
three waves of public sector employment relations reforms going back to 1992-93, 1997-98
and 2009.
First reform wave (1992-93). According to the major 1993 reform (legislative decree no.
29/1993), also labelled as “the first privatisation”5, the employment relationship of the large
majority of public employees has been privatized, their public law statute has been
removed, the special prerogatives attached to this status have been reduced, and their
controversies are not any longer subject to administrative law and administrative courts, but
to the civil code and ordinary tribunals. Since then, their terms and conditions of
employment are mostly determined through collective agreements negotiated between the
representative trade unions and ARAN, the public Agency purposely created in 1993,
partially amended in 1997 and 2009, to legally represent all Italian public administrations in
national level negotiations (with the exceptions of the five regions and two provinces with
special autonomy statute)6. At the end of 2010 the number of contractualised public
employees, managerial staff included, under the ARAN jurisdiction were something less than
2.7 million. The main groups excluded from privatization were (and still are), police corps
and armed forces (about 470 thousand employees), university teachers (about 55 thousand),
magistrates (10 thousand), diplomats and prefects (a little more than 2 thousand), prisons
personnel. Also top level state managers were excluded form privatization and
contractualisation in 1993, but then included since 1998. Police corps and, to a lesser extent,
armed forces, although not privatized, have forms of social dialogue and joint regulation,
separate from those of all the other public employees.
This has not always been the case. As above anticipated, during the first two decades after
WWII, public employees enjoyed a public law statute, did not have collective bargaining
rights and their employment relationship was unilaterally determined through legislation
and administrative acts; possible controversies were regulated by administrative tribunals.
As in many continental European countries, special prerogatives were attached to this public
law statute, to begin with employment security and other internal labour market guarantees
(Kickert, 2007; Keller, 1999, 2011; Bordogna and Neri, 2011). However, although without
collective bargaining rights, also in those decades trade unions had intense informal
relations with managers, and de facto used to play a pervasive role in the regulation of
5
This reform, within a larger program to renew the Italian public administration as a whole, was to some
extent inspired by the New Public Management approach (Bordogna, Dell’Aringa and Della Rocca 1999; Ongaro
2009; Bordogna and Neri 2011).
6
The creation of ARAN in 1993 was intended to insulate collective negotiations from party politics, remedying
the traditional invasion of political parties into the public sector industrial relations arena. However, this
insulation is obviously limited, since ARAN’s president, after the 2009 reform (rules were previously slightly
different), is nominated by a decree of the President of the Republic, on proposal of the Minister of Public
Function, and the other four members of the Steering Committee are designated two by the government, one
by the associations of municipalities and of provinces, and one by the Conference of the Regions and of the
two autonomous provinces; moreover, the resources for collective negotiations are decided by the
government and approved by the parliament in the budget law of the state. The 2009 reform established an
incompatibility of the ARAN president and of members of the Steering Committee with responsibilities in
political parties or in elected political bodies, and with responsibilities held in trade union organizations during
the preceding five years.
8
several internal labour market issues (recruitment, careers, mobility, disciplinary matters,
etc.).
Abandoned the unilateralism of previous decades7, and legally recognized collective
bargaining as the main method of regulation of terms and conditions of employment for the
large majority of public employees (around 80 percent), a two-tier bargaining system was
introduced in 1993, close to the private sector model (Figure 1). The main pillar consisted of
national level negotiations, sector by sector (central government, national health service,
local government, public schools, public universities, etc.), between the representative trade
unions and ARAN. The second pillar regarded decentralized, company level negotiations
between single employers and the workplace personnel representation bodies, on matters
and within constraints and financial limits precisely determined by the higher, national level
negotiations – according to a model of “centralized decentralization” adopted in those years
in several European countries (Traxler, 1995; Bordogna and Winchester, 2001). This two-tier
model has not substantially changed since then, although significant changes in the
relationship between the two levels have been introduced in 1997-98, with marked
empowerment of the lower level, significantly reversed in 2009.
All in all, after the 1993 reform, public sector employment relationship and labour relations
were opened to a private-sector style approach, embedded (at least in theory) within a
more ‘voluntarist’ context than in the 1980s, subject to budget constraints and exposed to
some market-type mechanisms of regulation (Bordogna and Neri 2011; Bordogna 2013).
Managerial prerogatives and responsibilities were strengthened, also on personnel and
employment relations matters, with, intendedly, increased autonomy from politicians and
trade unions, subject to stricter financial controls and tighter performance assessment
systems. Automatic wage increases and career promotions linked to seniority were
substituted with more discretionary, selective, performance-related mechanisms. This
reform was approved with the substantial endorsement of the main trade union
confederations (Russo, 2007).
Second reform wave (1997-99). The 1997-99 measures, often labelled as “the second
privatization”, markedly strengthened several features of the 1992-93 reform, even more in
line with the NPM approach. In particular, they further emphasized the regulatory role of
collective bargaining, making it resemble more closely the private sector model. The
bargaining structure was further decentralized, allowing individual administrations greater
autonomy in local level wage negotiations, even beyond, under certain (loose) conditions,
the financial limits set by higher level agreements. The scope of collective negotiations,
especially at decentralized level, was enlarged, to cover organizational and HRM matters
previously left to managerial responsibility. Stricter (in theory) performance assessment
procedures were introduced, both for managerial and non managerial staff. The centralized
controls by the state Court of Auditors on collective agreements, both at national and
decentralized level, were significantly eased and softened. Finally, also the employment
relationship of top state managers, previously excluded, was ‘privatised’ and
‘contractualised’, and the determination of their remuneration, previously unilaterally set by
legislation or administrative acts, was transferred both to collective negotiations and to
7
Actually, a first change already occurred in 1983, but with many regulatory shortcomings and perverse effects
(Giugni 1992; Bordogna, Dell’Aringa and Della Rocca 1999; Bordogna and Neri 2011).
9
individual agreements with the relevant political authorities. More precisely: the basic salary
was to be determined through national level collective negotiations between ARAN and the
representative trade unions of managers, while the variable component, linked to the type
of assignment and to individual performance, was to be set through individual negotiations
between managers and the same political authorities appointing them in their position and
in charge of evaluating their performance.
Some of these measures, however, generated difficulties and unexpected results, partly due
to their incomplete or inappropriate implementation, and partly due to weaknesses in their
original design (Bordogna 2013). These difficulties derived in particular: first, from the
conractualisation of top state managers, that implied a weakening of their autonomy vis-àvis both political authorities and trade unions (Rusciano, 2005 and 2008; Zoppoli, 2008;
Bordogna, 2009a); second, and more pertinent with our topic, from the enhanced role and
larger scope attributed to collective negotiations, especially at decentralized level, and the
easing of controls over their procedures and outcomes; and, third, from the weaknesses or
inappropriate implementation of the performance assessment systems (Zoppoli, 2008;
Caruso and Zappalà, 2007; Talamo, 2007).
A number of problems resulted, including the ‘invasion’ by trade unions and workplace
employee representation bodies of managerial prerogatives on work organization and
personnel management matters. Partly connected with this, a wage dynamic derived in the
200-2007 period about 10-15 percentage points higher than that in the private sector – a
difference almost entirely due to the outcomes of negotiations at decentralized level (ARAN,
2009, 2010 and 2011; Dell’Aringa, 2007; Vignocchi, 2007). This, according to many
observers, revealed serious weaknesses in the functioning of the institutions of public sector
social dialogue, especially at decentralized level. The devolution of larger negotiating
autonomy at decentralized level was not accompanied by the institutional mechanisms
necessary to strengthen actors’ responsibility.
Third reform wave (2008-09). The third wave of reforms, under the center-right government
arrived to office in Spring 2008, were meant to respond to some of the weaknesses of the
regulatory framework of the 1990s (especially of 1997-98), although without removing its
basic principles8. As a matter of fact, the privatization and contractualization of the
employment relationship of the large majority of public employees were not abolished, but
the role of collective bargaining was on the whole reduced and embedded within a stricter
web of rules and constraints. Employment relations and HRM practices were partially rejuridified, to the detriment not only of the autonomy of collective negotiations but, for some
respects, also of managerial prerogatives. A number of legal, highly prescriptive rules in
relation to organizational/HRM matters have been introduced, to some extent contradicting
the emphasis on managerial discretion. The two-level bargaining system was preserved, but
a more hierarchical relationship between the two levels was re-established, partly downplaying the autonomy and scope of the lower, decentralized level. The number of negotiable
matters was reduced, especially at decentralized level, with the explicit exclusion of those
related to the organization of work and HRM issues; on these matters, the only possibility
left to the local employers was, if expressly allowed by national level agreements, to provide
8
Law no.15/2009 and legislative decree no.150/2009, the so-called Brunetta reform, from the name of the
minister of Public Function (see also Bordogna 2013 for a summary of the main features of this reform).
10
information to workplace employee representation bodies, without opening negotiations.
Wage increases and career promotions were made conditional on selective procedures and
stricter performance assessment systems, with the aim to overcome the practices of
generalized wage increases and career promotions widely utilized in the previous period;
individual administrations and managers subscribing agreements or adopting policies in
violation of these principles could now be held legally liable and prosecuted by the state
Court of Auditors. A new central authority was created to promote performance
management and performance assessment systems within each individual administration,
and to monitor their implementation and operation. Tighter and pervasive centralized
controls by the government and the Court of Auditors on bargaining procedures and
outcomes, both at national and decentralized level, were re-established to monitor not only
the economic compatibilities of the agreements with the public budget constraints but also
their conformity to the basic principles of the reform (meritocracy, selectivity, transparency,
etc.). In case of stalemate in negotiations and prolonged difficulties in reaching agreements,
public employers, both at national and decentralized level, were given the possibility of
adopting unilateral decisions on the issues under negotiation, at least temporarily. Finally,
principles of transparency and accountability were introduced concerning the costs of
agreements at decentralized level and their consequences on service provision, in order to
activate forms of voice and social control by consumers, local communities and citizens at
large.
Other measures regarded a firmer contrast against absenteeism, that was (and partly still is)
notably higher than in the private sector, and a significant cut in the amount of working time
off and paid leaves for union activities to which all representative trade unions were (and
are) eligible9. However, no change was introduced in the rules regulating the
representativeness of trade union, nor in the system disciplining workplace representation
bodies, although their role in public sector social dialogue has been reduced as a
consequence of the greater constraints on negotiable matters.
Brief, the role of collective bargaining in the regulation of the employment relationship of
public employees was maintained, but is scope and autonomy was reduced, subject to
stricter legal rules and controls, and more exposed both to market-type constraints and
voice mechanisms. The purpose was to restore public employer’s responsibility in collective
negotiations and HRM matters, and to partially redraw the boundaries between
unilateralism and forms of joint regulation of employment relations, in favour of unilateral
regulation. A purpose that was connected with a more confrontational attitude towards
trade union than in the past, and often framed within a vociferous rhetoric campaign against
the alleged unbearable privileges of public employees and their persistent inefficiency, if not
parasitism, even after privatisation, overtly and unconditionally protected by the paralysing
action of trade unions.
9
According to estimates by the Department of Public Function, about 3 thousand public employees were on
paid leave for union activities in 2006, about 1 out of 1100 employees, for a total annual cost in 2006 of about
121 million euro (Il Sole-24 ore, 27 June 2008). To these, paid time off for several hundred thousand of
working hours should be added. Government measures adopted in October 2008 and February 2009 envisaged
a 15% cut of paid leaves and time off in 2009, and additional cuts in 2010 and 2011, to be defined. For
example, in the school sector, representing about 30% of total public employment, the positions on paid leave
for all representative trade unions were expected to decrease from 1,023 in 2009 to 528 in 2011. Only in 2009,
CGIL and CISL, the two largest organizations in the sector, were expected to lose respectively 49 and 48 union
officials on paid leave out of 327 and 321.
11
In some case, at decentralized level, this spirit of the reform was interpreted in the sense to
close or freeze any form of social dialogue, perhaps beyond the intentions of the reform
itself. The case studies in this report will provide some evidence about these developments.
To conclude, Figure 1 summarizes the bargaining unit/level at which negotiations are
practiced (national inter-industry level; national industry level; decentralized firm level), the
type of agreements that can be reached at the various levels, and the relevant bargaining
agents on the employer’s and employees’ side. The relevant bargaining levels for the
purposes of this research are the national industry (or sectoral) level and the firm/individual
administration level. In the first case, national collective agreements are reached that cover
all public employees of a certain sector nationwide; wage increases negotiated at this level
have the purpose to protect the purchasing power of wage and salaries nation-wide. At the
lower, company/single employer level, the parties can negotiate, within certain limits,
additional employer-specific wage increases linked to productivity and, partly, to
performance. A similar bargaining structure applies to managerial staff, but negotiations and
agreements are separate from those of non-managerial staff.
This two-tier bargaining structure has not basically changed since 1993, except for the
number of the national, industry-wide bargaining units and, as we have seen, the autonomy
and scope of the firm level negotiations. In the first bargaining round after the 1993 reform,
all the about 2.7-2.8 million Italian ‘contractualized’ public employees were subdivided into
eight bargaining units at national level: central government; local government (regions,
provinces and municipalities, with the exception of regions and provinces with autonomous
statute); public schools; public hospitals and structures of the National health service; the
non teaching staff of public universities; all compulsory social security organizations, etc.
(see Table 1 and Table 2). After the 1997-98 second privatization, the number of nationwide
bargaining units progressively increased up to 12, through the subdivision of previous
sectors into narrower bargaining units (for example, Central government split into three subsectors: Ministries; Prime Minister’s office; Internal revenue agencies), and the autonomy
and scope of collective negotiations, especially at the decentralised firm/individual
administration level, were strengthened. The 2009 reform legally cut down the number of
industry-wide bargaining units to a maximum of four, and significantly reduced the
autonomy and scope of collective negotiations especially at decentralised level.
The representative unions admitted to national, industry level negotiations in the regions
and local authorities sector are the three unions affiliated to the three largest
confederations (Cgil, Cisl, Uil), that together have a representativeness (average of
percentage of members on total membership in the sector and percentage of votes in the
rsu elections) of about 82%, plus an independent union with a little less than 6% of
representativeness. In addition to these, there are in the sector 127 trade unions, each
collecting extremely small percentages of members or of votes, that are therefore not
representative and are excluded from the national level bargaining table.
Figure 1. Bargaining units and bargaining agents, at various levels a
Bargaining unit/level and type of
agreement
Employers’ representatives
12
Employees’ representatives
1. National inter-industry level:
- national framework agreements
to define bargaining sectors or
areas (comparti)
- national framework agreements
on issues common to two or more
sectors or areas
2. National industry level (or
comparto):
- sectoral agreements at national
level (or CCNL), every three years
after the 2009 reform.
Bargaining units for managers and
non managerial staff are
separated.
One of these industry level
bargaining units is that of the
Regions and local authorities
3. Decentralized, company level
bargaining: ‘integrative’
agreements at single
administration unit (each
municipality, each province, each
region; each hospital; etc.).
Aran
‘Representative’ trade union
confederationsb
Aran
Trade union organizations
(sindacati di categoria) which are
‘representative’ within the sector
or bargaining unit c.
Confederations to which
representative trade union
organizations within the sector or
bargaining unit are affiliated.
Aran
The three unions affiliated to CGIL,
CISL, UIL + the independent union
CSA-CISAL
Head of the administrative unit (or
its representatives), with possibility
of Aran assistance
Unitary workplace personnel
representation bodies.
Other representatives, according
to the provisions of national
collective agreements (possibly,
representatives of each territorial
structure of union organizations
that has signed the national
collective agreement or comparto).
Notes
a According to the provisions of the d.lgs. 369/97
b Those trade union confederations to which union organizations are affiliated that have a 5%
representativeness in at least two sectors or bargaining areas.
c Trade union organizations with a representativeness in their sector or bargaining area of not less than 5%, as
an average between associative (percentage of members on total membership) and electoral
(percentage of RSU votes on total votes cast) criteria. Note that, before signing national level collective
agreements, Aran must verify that the trade unions with which the agreement has been reached
together have a representativeness of at least 51% in the relevant sector or bargaining area, as an
average of the associative and electoral criteria, or else at least 60% of the electoral criteria.
2. Economic crisis and austerity programs
As anticipated, when the economic crisis arrived in 2007 with the Lehman Brothers crack
and then exploded in 2008, Italy was quite timely in adopting austerity measures, many of
them affecting public sector expenditures and public sector employment relations
(Bordogna 2013). The first of these austerity packages, presented in June 2008 (decree law
no 112/2008) and definitely approved in early August of the same year, contained measures
to severely cut down the replacement ratio of both public sector managerial and non
managerial staff, to set constraints and tighter controls on collective negotiations at
13
decentralized level, with reduced resources, and to contrast the absenteeism of public
employees.
Following this first austerity package, public sector employment has been repeatedly a
crucial target of government measures, in May 2010, July 2011, August 2011 and December
2011, and finally in Summer 2012. Without going into technical details, three main types of
measures were adopted: provisions aimed at cutting down the number of public employees;
reform of the pension system; provisions targeted to wages and salaries of public
employees, that also implied a freeze of the 2010-2012 bargaining round at national industry
level, later extended to 2014, and, de facto, also a freeze of decentralised, company level
wage negotiations.
According to the first austerity package (d.l. 112/2008), staff turnover, both at managerial
and non-managerial level, was cut down to 10% in 2009 (precisely: new entrants were
allowed only for an expenditure equivalent to 10% of the labour cost of retired employees in
the previous year), 20% in 2010 and 2011, and 50% in 2012. Special measures of
rationalization regarded the personnel of the school sector, both teaching and non-teaching
staff, as well as the expenditures for personnel with flexible employment contracts. The
overall effects on the employment levels were already visible in 2010 (Table 1): at the end of
that year the total number of public employees was 4% lower than in 2008, with a decrease
both in the number of permanent employees (3.6%) and, even more, in the number of
employees with flexible contracts (almost 13%). Further measures, strengthening and
prolonging the turnover freeze, were adopted in 2010 (decree law no. 78/2010) and 2011
(decree laws no. 98, in July, and no. 138 in August), with expected cuts in the overall
employment level of about 10% in 2014 compared with 2008. These measures were
confirmed and strengthened by the Monti government in Summer 2012 (the so-called
legislation on the ‘spending review’, decree law no. 95/2012, art. 3).
The second set of measures, adopted first in 2008 and then strengthened in 2010-11,
regarded the dynamic of wages and salaries of public employees. After a national level
bargaining round in 2008-09 with very moderate wage increases, close to half of the
increases agreed upon in 2004-05 and 2006-07 (ARAN 2011), for the 2010-2012 wage round
collective negotiations at national level, both for managerial and non-managerial staff, were
simply cancelled by the decree law no. 78/2010, with no possibility of recovery in the
following rounds. Later measures further extended this freeze of national level collective
bargaining to 2013 and then to 2014. Collective negotiations at decentralized level were not
frozen, but subject to strict financial constraints, including the ban of exceeding on the
whole the ceiling of resources utilized in 2010; the only possibility left to the parties at local
level was to utilize a limited proportion of the so-called ‘efficiency gains’ realized in the
individual bureaus, after certification at central level. Wages and salaries of individual
employees were forbidden to exceed in 2011-13 the level of 2010, freezing also the
economic effects of career promotions, with the partial exception of the variable component
linked to merit or performance pay. A provision introduced in 2011 allows the government
to extend these freezes and constraints to the end of 2014 by simple administrative act,
without further legislation. Similar rules were adopted also for the non-contractualized
personnel (diplomats, prefects, university professors, police and armed forces, partly
judges), freezing any salary increase due to seniority or career promotion for three-four
14
years, without possibility to recover these losses at the end of the period and with effects
also on future pension payments. Further measures regarded higher level salaries, with cuts
by 5% for those with a gross salary between 90 and 150 thousand euro a year, and by 10%
for the part exceeding 150 thousand euro10. Brief, wage and salary dynamics were
significantly slowed down in 2008-09 in comparison with the 2000-07 period, and
substantially frozen since 2010 through the end of 2013 or, possibly, 2014. The wide gap
with the private sector wage and salary increases over the 2000-07 period has been first
significantly reduced, and then reversed in the most recent years (ARAN, 2011, Table 3).
A number of other expenditures were also cut down to a certain percentage of the 2009
level, among which the expenditures for personnel training activities (no more than 50% of
the 2009 amount). Detailed spending review procedures have finally been revived and are
currently (Fall, 2012) under way. Together with the wage and salary freeze and the
generalized turnover freeze, the aim is to stop the increase of, and then reduce, the wage
bill and total expenditures of public administrations.
Finally, the pension system was reformed both for private and public sector employees, with
some specificities for the latter ones. The standard retirement age for old age pension for
female public employees was raised, since 2012, from 61 to 66, in line with that of their
male colleagues, obeying to a 2008 sentence of the European Court of Justice and to a
recommendation of the EU Commission; the standard pensionable age for all employees
(public and private, males and females) has been linked to changes in life expectancies with
a first adjustment in 2013 in order to reach at least 67 by January 2021; the value of pension
treatments was reduced by lowering the protection from inflation, and shifting all the
employees (private and public) from an earnings-related to a contributions-related system,
including the cohorts of elder workers previously excluded (Jessoula-Pavolini, 2012); also the
end of service allowance for public employees was significantly cut.
Most of the preceding measures have been unilaterally adopted by the government, without
previous negotiations with trade unions and without searching union consent; in some
cases, explicitly against trade union protests.
Along with employment conditions, also traditional social dialogue institutions and practices
have been significantly affected first by the Brunetta reform, and later by the austerity
packages adopted to respond to the economic crisis11. In both cases, however, there can be
variations at local level, as the case studies will try to show.
3. a The austerity measures for local government
As anticipated above, the austerity measures on local government trace their origins back to
the adoption of the Internal Stability Pact (ISP) in 1998 (law no. 488/1998), following the
introduction of the EU Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). The ISP requires the 20 Italian
10
The latter measures cutting yearly gross salaries above 90 and 150 thousand have however been repealed by
a sentence of the Constitutional Court in November 2012, because of problems of legitimacy.
11
To some extent, the Brunetta reform itself was a victim of the economic crisis, its implementation process
having been frozen in May 2010 (decree law 78/2010), when the crisis deepened, and again in Summer 2011
(decree law 98/2011 and legislative decree 141/2011).
15
regions and the local government institutions (mainly the 8092 municipalities and 109
provinces) to contribute to pursue the public finance targets aimed at respecting the
financial SGP criteria. In the annual Stability Act (that is, the budget law of the State) and in
other acts, the national legislation defines the whole financial targets for local government
institutions which focus on the public debt containment. In order to pursue the targets, the
legislation includes a set of legal constraints on local government expenditures, including
personnel expenditure. In this sense, public employees of regional and local authorities are
affected twice by government austerity measures: first, by the legislation directly targeting
public sector employment levels, pension system and salaries; and, indirectly, by the
measures deriving form the internal stability pact and the connected legal constraints on
local government expenditures.
In the case of breach of the ISP financial targets, sanctions on municipalities and provinces
include a decrease in financial transfer from central government as well as a cap on current
expenditures and investments. Moreover, any hiring of permanent or temporary staff, for
any reason, is forbidden (decree law 112/2008, art. 76, co. 3; decree law no. 78/2010, art.
14, co. 3, converted in law no. 122/2010; legislative decree no. 149/2011, art. 7, co. 2; law
no. 183/2011, art. 8, co. 4).
Since 1998, financial targets and constraints have swung between strict rules and limitations
and more relaxed regulation. Many of the current austerity measures had already been
experimented in recent past, but since 2008, and especially in the last two years, they have
been progressively made more severe and intense, at unprecedented level. Financial targets
for local government have become more and more ambitious and hard to reach, while
regulations have been progressively intensified. Moreover, since summer 2011 the
regulation has changed at an extraordinary pace, with the approval of new measures aimed
at reassuring the financial markets and keeping the interest rates of the Italian public debt at
sustainable levels. This caused a high degree of uncertainty for local government
institutions, exposed to continuous, and at times inconsistent, changes in the legislation.
Summing up, the main current austerity measures on municipalities, part of which regarding
the entire public sector (see previous section), are as follows:
-a general statutory obligation to progressively reduce personnel expenditure, containing
salaries and staff numbers, introduced by the budget law for 2007 (law no. 296/2006, art. 1,
co. 557). At the same time, the legislation promoted the ‘stabilisation’ of temporary
employees for the years 2007-08, in case they were utilised for “permanent needs” of the
administration (law no. 296/2006, art. 1, co. 519; law no. 244/2007, art. 3, co. 94). While
stabilisation processes were abandoned in the following years, the obligation to reduce
employment levels and personnel expenditure was reasserted in 2008 and 2010 (decree law
112/2008, art. 76, co. 5; decree law no. 78/2010, art. 14, co. 7);
- a freeze of national level negotiations for the 2010-2012 bargaining round (then extended
to 2014) and a pay freeze until the end of 2014, prohibiting any wage increase which would
bring the salary of all public employees, including local government employees, over the
2010 level (decree law no. 78/2010, art. 9, co. 1, 4, 17; decree law no. 98/2011 art. 16, co. 1,
converted in law no. 111/2011). The pay freeze until the end of 2014 is confirmed by the
Stability Law for the year 2013 which is currently under Parliamentary scrutiny. These
measures affected also the viability and scope of decentralized, single employer level
16
negotiations, with a consequent freeze or denial of any economic advance for public
employees (including the employees of municipalities);
- a cut in training expenditures which, since 2011, cannot exceed 50% of the 2009 level
(decree law 78/2010, art. 6, co. 13);
- a ban on any new temporary and permanent hiring, including stabilisation of temporary
workers, where the ratio between personnel expenditure and total current expenditure of a
municipality exceeds 50%. This upper limit in the ratio was originally introduced in June 2008
(decree law 112/2008, art. 76, co. 7), was lowered to 40% in May 2010 (decree law no.
78/2010, art. 14, co. 9) and raised again to the current level of 50% in December 2011
(decree law no. 201/2011, art. 28, co.11-quater). Personnel expenditures include those
concerning any form of temporary employment. Until 2008 expenditure for temporary
workers was not explicitly included within the municipal personnel expenditure calculated
for the ratio (decree law 112/2008, art. 76, co. 1; decree law 78/2010, art. 14, co. 7);
- a restriction in the staff turn-over both for permanent and temporary employees. With
regard to permanent employees, a 2008 legislation limited the possibility to hire new
employees to an expenditure not exceeding 20% of the of the labour cost of retired
employees of the previous year. This cap was raised to 40% in April 2012 under the pressure
of the municipalities (respectively decree law 112/2008, art. 66 c.7; decree law 78/2010,
converted in law 122/2010, art. 9, c. 5; law 183/2011, art. 4, co. 103; law no. 44/2012, art.
4-ter, co. 10). As for recruitments of temporary employees, with any kind of fixed-term
contract, the limit was set at expenditure not exceeding 50% of that of 2009 (decree law no.
78/2010, art. 9, co. 28, converted in law no. 122/2010; law 183/2011, art. 4, co. 102). In April
2012 this cap was partially relaxed for temporary staff that will be hired, starting January
2013, to provide social and education services as well as local police service (law no.
44/2012, art. 4-ter, co. 10, co. 12).
There has been some interpretative uncertainty whether the regulation described above
should cover only the municipalities in strict sense or also the various kinds of semiautonomous organizations which are partially or entirely controlled and funded by the
municipalities, such as “joint-stock companies”, “special firms”, “foundations” or
“institutions”. During the last decade and until 2008, the creation of the latter type of semiautonomous organizations abounded, as Regions and municipal authorities tended to
exclude them from the scope of ISP and connected constraints. But since 2008 the courts
and the legislation reacted against these elusive practices, which especially concerned the
joint-stock companies. The result is that currently also the joint-stock companies entirely or
partially controlled by local government institutions or Regions are included within the scope
of the ISP regulation, which comprises the rules and constraints on personnel expenditure as
well as the restrictions on staff turn-over and new recruitments (decree law no. 112/2008,
art. 76, co. 7, modified by decree law no. 98/2011, art. 20, co. 9; decree law no. 112/2008,
art. 18). Special firms and institutions will be included within the scope of application of ISP
regulation starting from 2013, except for those providing cultural, social and education
services or managing pharmacies (law no. 44/2012. art. 4-ter, co. 10). Foundations are still
excluded from any constraint connected to the ISP.
As we will see, these exclusions have relevant consequences on the ways in which the
municipalities are dealing with the consequences of the austerity measures. Moreover,
foundations and special firms have a private legal status, which means that the terms and
17
conditions of employment of their employees are regulated by private sector collective
agreements rather than by the Regions and local government agreements negotiated with
Aran.
All the above described measures concern not only the municipalities but also the 109
provinces in Italy. The provinces represent the second level of local government, with the
municipalities as the first level closer to citizens, and they mainly have territorial planning
functions. The provinces were historically very important in the Italian public administration,
but after the creation of the Regions in 1970 they have lost most of their powers and many
consider them useless and costly local authorities. As noticed above, following a legislation
introduced in 2011-12 (decree law no. 201/11, art. 23, co. 18 and 19; decree law no.
95/2012, art. 17, converted in law no. 135/2012), provinces are currently subject to a
program of complete re-organisation, aimed at cutting down their number and expenditures
through mergers, transfer of many of their competences to the municipalities, and the
creation of ‘metropolitan cities’ in substitution of the largest provinces (decree law no.
188/2012). But this process has been halted, at least temporarily, by the crisis of the Monti
government in December 2012.
3. b The case studies
Table 4 shows the distribution of the 8,092 Italian municipalities by size in terms of resident
population. The large majority (about 70%) of Italian municipalities are very small, with a
population of less than 5,000 inhabitants, and almost the totality (more than 90%) have less
than 20,000 inhabitants. The distribution of the population is however more balanced,
although about 1 out of 6 Italian citizens live in municipalities with fewer than 5,000
inhabitants.
Table 4: Number and population of Italian municipalities
Demographic
Municipalities
Population (31/12/2010)
classes
No.
%
No.
%
Up to 4,999
5,683
70.2%
10,358,869
17.1%
5,000-19,999
1,893
23.4%
18,130,337
29.9%
20,000-59,999
412
5.1%
13,564,660
22.4%
60,000-249,999
92
1.1%
9,455,827
15.6%
> = 250,000
12
0.2%
9,116,749
15.0%
8,092
100.0%
60,626,442
100.0%
Total
Source: Anci (www.anci.it)
18
Small and medium-size Italian municipalities (fewer than 100,000 inhabitants12) can create
“Associations of municipalities” or other kinds of arrangements to provide services in a more
efficient way. Since 2010 the smallest municipalities (fewer than 5,000 inhabitants) are
legally obliged to create associations or sign agreements in order to jointly provide their
“fundamental functions”, which include general administration, accounting and control,
local police, early education (0-6 year old), local transport, environmental and territorial
planning, social services (decree law 78/2010, art. 14, co. 28). For municipalities with at least
5,000 inhabitants, the Regions have to ensure the joint provision of the “fundamental
functions” through associations of municipalities or other arrangements.
At the end of 2010 there were 313 associations of municipalities, involving 19% of the Italian
municipalities. Almost half of the associations were situated in the north of Italy, where they
included 16% of all the municipalities; however the highest percentage of municipalities
involved in an association was in the islands of Sardinia and Sicily, where 49% of all the
municipalities are already associated (Cittalia, 2010). The number of associated
municipalities and of other forms of agreements among small municipalities are considered
inadequate and insufficient. Therefore, the above mentioned “Spending review act” (decree
law no. 95/2012, art. 19) forces the municipalities with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants to
create associations of municipalities or other arrangements by 2013-2014.
Small and medium-small municipalities have very peculiar characteristics both in terms of
administrative problems and employment relations, with strong territorial differences which
make them difficult to compare. Although we are aware that the large majority of Italian
municipalities, and a very significant proportion of Italian citizens belong to these groups,
we decided to exclude them from the current analysis, and to take two medium size
municipalities (60,000-249,000 inhabitants), Modena, near Bologna, and Sesto San Giovanni
(near Milano) as case studies. Modena is also the administrative seat of the province with
the same name, while Sesto is part of the province of Milan and, in terms of population, is
closer to the third group of municipalities in Table 4.
The Modena municipality
The Modena municipality is located in the Emilia-Romagna Region, in the Centre-North of
Italy, with a population of over 180,000 inhabitants, slowly increasing over recent years. The
municipality has always been ruled by left-wing parties (mainly the Communist Party and the
Socialist Party) and currently by a coalition of centre-left parties led by the Democratic Party
(PD). Like other municipalities of the Region, it has a strong tradition in providing good
quality services, especially welfare services such as childcare and early education (0-6 year
old) services and social services. However, in the 1990s and 2000s a great part of the social
services were contracted out and are now largely provided by third sector organizations on
behalf of the municipality. No outsourcing process interested, on the contrary, the childcare
sector, but in the last decade the service coverage was extended mainly through private
providers which are funded and regulated by the municipality. Direct provision by the
municipality, whose high quality is nationally and internationally recognized, represents over
12
The joint provision of services among municipalities is allowed also for the municipalities with more than
100,000 inhabitants.
19
50% of the total provision of services for 0 to 3 year old children (mainly crèches or
nurseries) and about 40% of services for 3 to 6 year old ones (kindergartens)13.
At the end of 2011 the staff of the Modena municipality consisted of 2,039 employees,
including 37 managers. The largest municipal departments were those of Education (about
28% of employees), Social Services (about 15%) and the Local Police in charge of traffic and
city regulations (12%).
According to the results of the elections of the workplace employee representation bodies
(Table 5), by large the strongest organization, with 64% of the votes and 17 out of 27 seats,
is the FP (Funzione Pubblica)-CGIL, the public service union affiliated to the largest Italian
trade union confederation, followed at great distance by FPS-CISL, affiliated to the second
largest Italian confederation; FP-UIL, affiliated to the third largest Italian confederation, has
only a minor presence, with 1 seat. However, two independent unions have a significant
presence in two sectors: CSA (Coordinamento Sindacale Autonomo)-FIADEL (Federazione
Italiana Autonoma degli Enti Locali) among child carers and kindergarten teachers, and
SULPM (Sindacato Unitario Lavoratori Polizia Municipale)-DiCCAP (Dipartimento Autonomie
locali e Polizie Locali), a professional union well rooted among local police workers,
respectively with about 10 and 9 percent of votes and 3 and 2 seats. Compared with the
2007 election, and contrary to the national trend in the Regions and local authorities
subsector, the participation rate increased in 2012, up to 76 percent from 71 percent in
2007; however the distribution of votes and seats among the unions is quite stable, apart
from the increase of the CSA at the expense of the other independent union SULPM-DICCAP.
Compared with the picture of trade union presence in the Regions and local authorities
sector at national level (Table 3 above), CGIL has in the municipality under exam a much
greater strength than the other organizations.
Table 5: Elections for the unitary workplace representation bodies – 2012 and 2007
No. votes and %
Seats
No. votes and %
2012
Seats
2007
Diff. %
Diff.
2012-07
in seats
FP-CGIL
866 (64.3%)
17
806 (64.9%)
17
-0.6%
0
FPS-CISL
191 (14.2%)
4
184 (14.8%)
4
-0.6%
0
FPL-UIL
40 (3.0%)
1
35 (2.8%)
1
+0.2%
0
FIADEL-CSA
132 (9.8%)
3
108 (8.7%)
2
SULPM –DICCAP
118 (8.7%)
2
109 (8.8%)
3
-0.1%
-1
1,347 (100.0%)
27
1,242 (100.0%)
27
=
=
Total
+1.2%
+1
Source: Modena municipality
13
In Italy social services are historically run by municipalities and private providers (for-profit and non-profit
organisations), and partly by the NHS in case of organisations providing both social and health care services. In
the childcare and education sector, the great majority of schools (serving children from 6 year old) are
managed by the central government through the Ministry of Education; private schools are a minority.
Childcare services for 0-3 year-old children are provided by the municipalities and private organisations (mainly
non-profit). Childcare services for 3-5 year-old children are provided by the municipality, the central
government and private organisations (mainly non-profit).
20
In May-June 2012 the Modena area was hit by a series of earthquakes (5-6 degrees on the
Richter scale), which caused 16 deaths as well as very serious and extended damages to
residential, historical and especially industrial buildings. Although the town of Modena was
only partially affected by the earthquakes, in the near future the municipality will have
extraordinary expenses for the refurbishment of several historical and public buildings (such
as schools), only partially supported by regional, national and EU funds. Moreover, municipal
revenues from local taxes are expected to decrease because, general economic crisis apart,
the economy of the area will be negatively affected by the quite relevant reduction of the
productive capacity caused by the earthquake.
The impact of the austerity measures: critical issues and current adjustments
The main consequence of the austerity measures on the Modena municipality has been the
reduction in the size of municipal staff. During the 2000s the number of employees,
including permanent and temporary staff, has been substantially stable, swinging between
2,050 and 2,100 employees. As shown in Table 6, from 2002 to 2006 the employment levels
slightly decreased because of the above mentioned restrictions of new recruitments
introduced at the end of 2004 (law no. 311/2004). However in 2008 the staff number
increased again, reaching a peak due to stabilisation measures of temporary employees
introduced for the years 2007-08, and then started to decrease, for the first time below
2050 employees in 2011, and even further in 2012, because of the externalisation processes
carried out during the year (see below). Between 2008 and 2012 the staff decreased by
more than 7 percent.
Table 6: Employment levels in Modena municipality (2002-2012, staff with permanent and
temporary employment contract)
Municipal staff
Diff. with the previous
2002
2006
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2,079
2,060
2,096
2,064
2,058
2,039
1,948*
=
-19
+36
-32
-6
-19
- 91
(-0.9%)
(+1.7%)
(-1.5%)
(-0.3%)
(-0.9%)
(-4.5%)
90.4%
93.5%
94.5%
93.9
92.3%
95.2%*
year in the table
Permanent employees
90.9%
on the whole staff (%)
*Data refer to 5/31/2012.
Source: Comune di Modena (various years).
The staff reduction is determined mainly by the very low number of recruitments, which
were strictly limited, far below the constraints imposed by the legislation on replacement
ratios. After the exceptional peak of 2008 (including stabilization of temporary employees),
when 232 new employees were hired, in 2009 and 2010 the municipality hired respectively
73 and 79 permanent employees, not far from the level of 2007 (91) and more than in 2006
(67). In 2011 and 2012 the new hiring of permanent staff amounted respectively to 12 and
18.
21
In 2012, along with restrictions in new hiring, staff reduction is due also to the
externalization policy undertaken by the municipality, which involved services with a high
ratio of temporary employees, which explains why the percentage of permanent employees
increased by two points from 2011 to 2012, reaching a peak of 95.2%. From 2006 and 2009
permanent employees rose from 90.4% to 94.5% of all employees, due to the stabilization
policy which was implemented up until 2009. Then the percentage decreased by two points
and significantly increased again in 2012.
As a result of these changes, from 2007 to 2011 the percentage of personnel expenditure on
total current expenditure decreased from 38.7 to 35.4 percent (Table 7). In absolute terms,
personnel and total current expenditures were respectively 74,819 million and 211,209 euro
in 2011. Personnel expenditure is expected to further decrease because of the
externalization of services carried out in 2012.
Table 7. Percentage of personnel expenditure on total current expenditure
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Difference 2011-07
38.7%
36.9%
36.2%
35.6%
35.4%
-3.3
Source: Modena municipality, Rapporto di attività 2011.
Externalisation was undertaken in order to deal with the increasing shortage in the
municipal workforce, which is due to the legal constraints imposed on personnel
expenditure and cuts on staff turn-over. This is especially so in the education and social
service sectors, where kindergarten teachers and social care workers who retire can be only
partially replaced by new permanent or temporary employees. In the case of teachers of 3-6
year old children, the shortage is aggravated by the annual transfer of staff to the state
kindergartens, where pay and working time conditions are more favourable compared to
those of municipal kindergartens. In the year 2011-12, 41 municipal kindergarten teachers
were lacking, replaced by temporary teachers hired with a one-year contract, as it happened
in the previous years. However, temporary work contracts are subject to legal constraints
and are included in the personnel expenditure subject to the Internal Pact of Stability,
therefore they may only solve the problem in a partial and inadequate way.
In order to deal with this increasing staff shortage, in the first part of 2012 the municipality
externalised some directly-run services in two different ways:
1) in the social sector, one of the two residential care homes still directly run by the
municipality was contracted out to a third sector organisation; 38 municipal jobs were
suppressed. Most of the municipal workers on fixed-term contracts were hired by the new
third sector employer or were replaced by other employees of this organisation. In order to
ensure the continuity of the service, the few permanent municipal employees are continuing
to work in residential care for one year under the new organisation, though they are still
employed by the municipality (in the juridical language, they are “commanded workers” by
the municipality to the third sector organisation), and will then reallocated in the remaining
municipal residential care home or in other municipal services. Fixed-term contracts
previously used by the municipality were not renewed. Other externalisation processes
22
involved some librarians and teachers for persons with learning disabilities, where
temporary contracts had been used in recent years;
2) in the education sector, the municipality transferred four municipal kindergartens into a
newly-established foundation. This foundation is entirely owned by the municipality but,
according to current legislation, is out of the constraints on hiring and personnel
expenditure set by the Internal Stability Pact and connected legislation; this circumstance
allowed the hiring of twenty teachers and other staff. Similarly to what happened in the
residential care home, six permanent municipal teachers were “commanded” for one year to
work under the new foundation; they will then be re-allocated in the municipal kindergarten
and substituted by other teachers employed by the foundation. In this way the municipality
could suppress 38 jobs and limit the use of temporary contracts within the municipal
kindergartens in the year 2012-13. However, given the persisting shortages, other
kindergartens as well as some nurseries are expected to be transferred to the foundation by
2013.
The choice of two partially different solutions is explained partly by the different views
towards externalisation of the Social and the Public Education municipal Ministers, with the
former one more favourable to the private provision of welfare services, and partly by the
circumstance that externalisation processes are less accepted and legitimated in the
education sector, where the initial plan to contract out the kindergartens met strong
opposition both by the local community and the municipal teachers. This is also due to the
excellent reputation of municipal kindergartens, which are normally preferred by families to
state or private ones.
Similar staff shortage problems are shared by many municipalities, especially in the northern
and central regions of the country, like Bologna, Florence, Turin, Alessandria, Livorno; the
solutions adopted by the Modena municipality are often regarded as potential examples to
follow. The decrease in the number of employees is expected to continue and possibly
intensify in the years to come, reflecting a reduction of services directly provided by the
municipality, especially welfare services.
According to some interviewees, the general workforce shortages and subsequent
externalisation are matched with the presence of staff in excess in other departments, like
clerical employees in the Accounting department or technical profiles in Territorial Planning,
Transports and Mobility department or Public Works. Cuts in these departments have been
rather rare in the last years, mostly due to the opposition of managers; after the earthquake
have been in any case postponed to tackle the problems of building maintenance and
reconstruction.
Until the end of 2012, the austerity measures have not stimulated a significant reorganisation of the internal structure of the municipality, although in 2011 changes in the
organisation of some offices brought about some efficiency gains, 30 percent of which
(equal to 150,000 euros), through an agreement between management, workplace
representation bodies and local trade unions, went to increment the fund for performancerelated pay, as allowed by the national legislation (legislative decree no. 150/2009, art. 27,
co. 1).
23
The only significant organisational change concerned an extension of the opening time of
the registry offices, that allowed some savings in meal tickets and other bonuses enjoyed by
employees, part of which was devolved to the fund for productivity pay. Recently the
municipality has presented a plan to reorganise also the working time of Local Police, and
negotiations with unions are about to start. Internal staff mobility as a tool to deal with
shortages has been rare, as well as professional re-training of employees.
The social dialogue: towards a “dialogue of the deaf”
Industrial relations within the municipality are traditionally highly cooperative, especially
with the unions affiliated to the largest confederations (FP-CGIL, FPS-CISL and FPL-UIL).
Beyond formal negotiations in strict sense, managers of the HR and Decentralisation
Department, often along with some local Ministers, and union representatives have weekly
meetings to discuss all the issues concerning the personnel in an open and cooperative way.
Cooperative relationship characterized also the definition of the new performance
assessment system, adopted through municipal acts and related union-management
agreements in 2011 and 2012, to implement the highly controversial regulation introduced
by the Brunetta reform in 2009. The new evaluation system divides every year municipal
staff into five groups or ranges which receive different shares of the funds available for
productivity or performance-related pay, depending on the points (from 0 to 120) obtained
in the annual evaluation:
1) up to 60 points = no performance related-pay ;
2) 70 points = the basic level of the available performance related-pay;
3) 80 points = 15% more the than basic level;
4) 90 or 100 points = 30% more than the basic level;
5) 110 or 120 points14 = 45% more than the basic level.
This system to some extent softens the provisions of the Brunetta reform, that required to
classify all employees in each single administration into at least three groups, the highest
one including 25 percent of the personnel with 50 percent of the available PRP resources,
the intermediate one including 50 percent of the personnel with 50 percent of resources,
leaving the lowest 25 percent of the personnel without any performance-related pay. The
Brunetta reform allowed however the parties at local level to agree upon some variations to
the system; this possibility has been partially exploited in the municipality of Modena,
mainly to reduce the percentage of personnel included in the lowest group, with no PRP
(unions’ claim was to eliminate this group), and to enlarge from 25 to 30 percent the
possible size of the top group.
Despite these examples of cooperation, in 2011 and in 2012 the practice of social dialogue
has progressively worsened and both parties recognize that the weekly meetings are
becoming a sort of “dialogue of the deaf”. Unions blame managers and elected authorities
for adopting unilateral decisions without any formal or informal negotiation, giving the
14
While the points can be in units up to 60 (for example 45, 55 or 58), from 60 points, they have to be
multiples of ten (60, 70, 80, etc.).
24
unions only the “take it or leave it” option. The municipality managers maintain that they
are forced into this attitude because of the opposition of the unions to any change aimed at
solving the problems caused by the austerity measures. Moreover they underline that the
2009 Brunetta reform strengthened managerial prerogatives on HRM issues and significantly
reduced the number of negotiable matters at decentralized level. In particular, the reform
excluded, among others, matters connected with work organisation and obliged managers,
in case this possibility was explicitly included in higher level collective agreements, just to
inform unions about their decision, without opening negotiations.
The debate and confrontation about the way to deal with the staff shortage caused by the
austerity measures highlights this situation. Union proposals are focused on the use of
internal mobility and professional re-training. They press also the municipality to take into
consideration a whole internal re-organisation as a tool to significantly improve the service
efficiency, preserving the same level of service despite the staff shortage. The municipality
political authorities and managers, on the contrary, do not believe that internal mobility and
re-organisation would allow an effective management of the staff shortage problem and
think that, given the legal constraints on personnel expenditures and the direct or indirect
pressures to reduce it, outsourcing processes are inevitable in the welfare services, if the
municipality wants to keep on providing the same service level as in the past.
The unions opposed any outsourcing process in the social and education services, mainly to
avoid a worsening of terms and conditions of employment, that in the private sector are
usually less favourable than in the public sector. In the two cases described above, the terms
and conditions of employment for staff hired by the residential care home have certainly
worsened, as a consequence of the national collective agreement applied in this sector, with
pay and working conditions substantially lower than in the local government agreement
adopted for municipal employees.
In the case of the foundation kindergarten, the municipality decided to use the national
collective agreement for private schools. This is made possible by the private legal status of
the foundation, which allows to use private sector agreements instead of the local
government agreement, although, as mentioned above, the foundation is entirely owned by
the municipality. At the end of August 2012 negotiations resulted in a draft company level
agreement which aligned terms and conditions of permanent teachers hired by the
foundation to the level of temporary municipal teachers, slightly lower than the conditions
of permanent municipal teachers. The unions affiliated to the three largest confederations
decided not to sign the company agreement, which was instead subscribed only by one
independent union of teachers, traditionally strong in the state school sector but not in the
municipality.
This episode has considerably worsened the relations between the municipality and the
unions, especially in the childcare sector. In Autumn 2012 kindergarten teachers went on a
series of strikes to protest against the uncertainty of the future of municipal kindergartens
and nurseries and the risk of new “privatisations”. Other grounds for strike were a general
worsening of staff conditions: teachers as well as ancillary staff are increasingly not
substituted for one-day absences, while there is a growing use of manpower agencies in the
services, especially for teachers. The municipality maintains that it is forced to use
25
manpower agencies for the new constraints imposed on the renewal of temporary contracts
by the labour market reform approved in June 2012 (law no. 92/2012), but according to the
unions these constraints should not be applied in the school sector.
The Sesto San Giovanni municipality
The Sesto San Giovanni municipality is located in Lombardy, the biggest and most populated
Italian Region (more than 9 million inhabitants), in the North of Italy. It has a population of
over 80,000 people, slightly increased in the last decade, and is situated on the north-east
border of Milan, with over 3 million inhabitants. Sesto San Giovanni was a rich industrial
area, now partly de-industrialized, and until a few years ago it was considered a blue collar
town, with a strong communist political tradition (it was known as the “Italian Stalingrad”).
The municipality has traditionally been run by left-wing parties (the Communist Party and
the Socialist Party) and is currently ruled by a coalition of centre-left parties led by the
Democratic Party.
This helps explain why in the 1960s and 1970s the municipality developed a wide range of
services aimed at supporting the working class, such as nurseries, kindergartens, social care
services and a large public housing sector. During the 1980s and the 1990s the public
housing was ‘regionalised’ (transferred under the responsibility of the Region), while, unlike
Modena, the municipal kindergartens were all transferred to the central government
administration. However, according to a widespread tradition in Lombardy, the municipal
Department of Education also runs four “civic schools” providing languages, arts and music
courses for about 1200 young students and adults.
As in the other case study, social services were contracted out in the 1990s and 2000s and
are at present largely provided by third sector organizations on behalf of the municipality.
The municipal nurseries were not contracted out, but the service coverage was extended
mainly through private providers which are funded and regulated by the municipality.
However, municipal structures still provide the large majority of service for 0-3 year old
children.
At the end of April 2011 (latest data available) the staff of the Sesto San Giovanni
municipality consisted of 795 employees, including 16 managers. The largest municipal
departments were Education (about 19% of the whole staff), the “Department of Service to
Citizens”, which comprised the registry and other offices issuing certificates and
authorizations (about 13%) and the local police in charge of traffic and city regulations
(12%). No significant change in staff number has occurred in 2012.
Among the unions, in the 2012 elections for the unitary workplace representation bodies
(Table 8), FP-CGIL obtained 8 seats out of 15 and 58% of the votes; FPL–UIL had 2 seats and
FPS-CISL 1 seat. The independent USB union (Unione Sindacale di Base), with a radical
stance, obtained 3 seats and another independent union, the already mentioned CSA
(Coordinamento Sindacale Autonomo)-FIADEL (Federazione Italiana Autonoma Enti Locali)
obtained 1 seat. Moreover, few months after the elections, one of the FP-CGIL
representatives left its union to join the independent organisation of the local police SULPM
(Sindacato Unitario Lavoratori Polizia Municipale)-DICCAP (Dipartimento Autonomie locali e
26
Polizie Locali). Therefore FP-CGIL lost the absolute majority in the unitary workplace
representation body of the municipality.
Table 8: Elections of workplace unitary representation bodies (2012 and 2007)
No. votes and %
Seats
No. votes and %
2012
Seats
2007
Diff.
in seats
FP-CGIL
302 (57.6%)
8
306 (66.3%)
10
-2
FP-CISL*
39 (7.4%)
1
=
=
+1*
FPL-UIL
59 (11.3%)
2
43 (9.3%)
1
+1
USB (SDL)
109 (20.8%)
3
112 (24.3%)
4
-1
15 (2.8%)
1
=
=
+1**
524 (100.0%)
15
461 (100.0%)
15
=
CSA-FIADEL
Total
* FP-CISL did not present any candidate in the 2007 election; ** FIADEL-CSA did not present any candidate in
the 2007 election.
Source: Sesto San Giovanni municipality, 2012
Compared with the 2007 elections, when FP-CISL and CSA-FIADEL did not present any
candidate, in 2012 FP-CGIL lost about 9 percentage points of its votes and USB more than 3
percentage points. The workplace representation body is much more fragmented in 2012,
and, as we have seen, few months after the election the FP-CGIL lost the majority of seats,
with problematic effects on social dialogue practices within the municipality.
The impact of the austerity measures: critical issues and current adjustments
In May 2012 the municipal elections took place in Sesto San Giovanni. As usually happens in
the electoral years, this determined a substantial paralysis in the decision making of the
municipality, which, according to many interviewees, followed the policy of the previous
administration to postpone potentially controversial decisions. This would be shown by the
sales of municipal real estate assets, chosen as a way to increase the municipal revenue,
enabling the municipality to respect the pact of stability without significantly cutting the
expenditures both for services and staff.
The put-off policy is reflected in the stability of employment levels which, unlike in Modena,
have not been reduced yet (Table 9). The total number of employees, temporary staff
included15, decreased from 2002 to 2006, due to restrictions on new hiring introduced at
the end of 2004 (law no. 311/2004), then started to increase, as in the case of Modena,
reaching a peak in 2008 (+7.2% compared with 2006), stabilising in the following years. From
2006 to 2012 the total number of staff increased by 4.4%, while in Modena it decreased by
5.4%.
15
Official documents provide data about the number of staff positions planned in the organizational structure
of a public administration. Any position should be covered by a permanent or temporary employee. This is not
always the case given that in many public administrations some positions are vacant. According to official
documents and to what emerged in the interviews, in the case of Modena the number of planned positions
corresponds to the actual staff number, while this is partly different in the case of Sesto San Giovanni, with
variations from year to year.
27
Table 9: Employment levels in Sesto San Giovanni municipality and employees with
permanent contract (2002-12; ‘dotazione organica’)
Municipal staff
Diff. with the previous
2002
2006
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
763
747
801
800
795
795
795*
=
-16
+54
-1
-5
0
0*
(-2.1%)
(+7.2%)
(-0.1%)
(-0.6%)
0.0%
0.0%*
93,4%
93.5%
94,5%
95,0%
94,7%
94.5%*
year in the table
Permanent employees
94,4%
on all the staff (%)
*Data for 2012 refer to 3/10/2012
Source: Sesto San Giovanni municipality acts and internal documents, various years
Between 2006 and 2009 also the number of permanent employees significantly increased
from 698 to 764, due stabilisation policies adopted in the period, when 76 new permanent
employees were hired. In 2011 personnel expenditure amounted to 37.4% of current
expenditures (27,248 million euro on 72,808 million euro).
Table 10: Ratio between personnel expenditure and current expenditure
2009
2010
2011
Diff. 2011-09
38.3%
37.8%
37.4%
- 0.90%
Source: Sesto San Giovanni municipality, Rendiconto di gestione 2011.
The high level of hiring of the previous years and the legal constraints introduced since 2008
caused in the following period a drastic fall in new hiring: 21 permanent employees were
hired in 2010 and only 4 in 2011. This recent trend is probably destined to continue, forcing
the new municipal administration to face a staff shortage problem, like in the case of
Modena.
Until the end of 2012 this shortage, which is starting to be significant in the social, childcare
and education services, has been tackled using fixed-term contracts, but this strategy is not
sufficient to solve the problem, given the new legal constraints also on the use of temporary
workers. In September 2012 a dozen civic school temporary workers were transferred, with
the same kind of fixed-term contract, from the municipality to the a “special company”
providing training courses for Sesto and other municipalities of the area. As already
mentioned, a special company (or special firm) is a semi-autonomous organisation, provided
with a private legal status though entirely controlled by one or more municipalities. Since
2013, special companies will be included in the ISP constraints except for those providing
cultural, education, social services as well as those managing pharmacies (a special company
to run municipal pharmacies was created in the previous years).
This personnel transfer could be only the beginning of wider changes in staff and in the
municipality organisation. In the medium-long term some possible solutions to staff
shortage could be the following ones:
28
1) in the social services, the municipality could transfer a part of the directly-managed
services, such as residential and semi-residential care homes, to a foundation already
managing social services in the area. The foundation, created in 2003, is controlled by
the Sesto San Giovanni municipality, which appoints 4 of the 7 members of the board of
governors, and involves some charities and non-profit organisations which appoint the
other 3 members of the board of governors. This foundation can be considered an
“institutionalised Public-Private Partnership (PPP)”, in which the cooperation between
the public and the private sector takes place within a distinct entity, in charge of
ensuring the delivery of a work or a service for the benefit of the public. “An
institutionalised PPP can be put in place, either by creating an entity held jointly by the
public sector and the private sector… or by the private sector taking control of an
existing public undertaking” (European Commission, 2004, p. 18; see also Neri, 2011). In
some ways, the Modena foundation school can be considered an institutionalised PPP,
because its internal governance is conceived to include private partners, but, unlike the
Sesto foundation, is completely owned by the municipality;
2) in the education sector, a solution could be the creation of a special company which
would be excluded by the ISP constraints, as mentioned above. Another option is
contracting out some nurseries to third sector organisations.
Moreover, many interviewees focused on the increasing difficulties to manage and motivate
staff to provide good quality and efficient services and to meet performance targets,
because of increasing employee dissatisfaction and absence of adequate incentives. Several
austerity measures would directly or indirectly bring about these difficulties: the freeze of
collective negotiations at national and partly at company level until the end of 2014, with
the consequent freeze of pay improvements; the very limited possibility of career
advancements; the severe cuts in training expenditures. These critical issues, linked to a
nation-wide legislation, have been found also in the Modena municipality, but in Sesto they
apparently have more serious effects. In this case the problem of motivating employees is
worsened by the current difficulties to find the financial resources for the performancerelated pay system for 2012, due to the need to cut total staff expenditures. This
circumstance would determine some paradoxical consequences, as in 2011 the Sesto
municipality widely revised its performance evaluation system (see below), with a significant
involvement of managers and personnel, feeding great expectations among staff that now
risk being seriously disappointed.
As a partial safety valve, so-called ‘horizontal progressions’, that is simple economic
advancements within the same grade of the job classification system, continue to be
attributed despite the legal constraints. This is different from the case of Modena, where
horizontal progressions have been simply denied until 2015. However, even in Sesto San
Giovanni they are attributed with strict limitations, given the scarcity of available financial
resources.
In the second part of the 2000s, and again in 2011, the Sesto municipality undertook some
processes of internal re-organisation, but none of these resulted in staff reduction or in
significant cuts in staff expenditures. A new, more complex re-organisation is currently
under definition and will be probably influenced by the austerity measures, with possibly
29
deeper effects. At present, internal mobility is rare and the municipal managers do not seem
to rely on this tool to fill personnel shortages.
The social dialogue: from cooperation to instability?
As in Modena, industrial relations within the Sesto municipality have been traditionally
highly cooperative, especially with the unions affiliated to the three largest confederations
(FP-CGIL, FPS-CISL and FPL-UIL). As in Modena, the managers of the HR Department, often
along with some local Ministers, have very frequent meetings with union representatives
and the workplace employee representation body to discuss all the issues concerning
personnel in an open and cooperative way. Moreover, during 2012 a former FP-CGIL local
leader was appointed as the head of the cabinet offices of the new mayor, showing the
closeness of the new administration to the main union organization within the municipality.
Therefore, municipal managers and union leaders think that the difficulties emerged as a
consequence of the austerity measures will be faced through a strict cooperation between
the social partners, as is currently occurring to find the financial resources necessary to fund
the PRP system.
A cooperative style was adopted in the negotiations aimed at defining the methodology and
criteria of the new performance evaluation system in 2011, to comply with the rules
introduced by the 2009 Brunetta reform. The new system divides staff into four groups or
ranges which receive different shares of the funds available for the performance-related
pay, depending on the points (from 0 to 1,000) obtained in the evaluation process:
1)
2)
3)
4)
up to 400 points = no performance related-pay;
from 401 to 600 points = 60% of the available performance related-pay;
from 601 to 800 points = 80% of the available performance related-pay;
from 801 to 1,000 points = 100% of the available performance related-pay.
As in the case of Modena, the system partially softens the constraints of the Brunetta
reform, exploiting the limited room of manoeuvre that the reform itself left to negotiations
between the social partners; in particular, the system does not imply that 25% of the
personnel be compulsorily evaluated in the lowest group with no productivity pay.
However, traditional cooperative relations entered a state of instability in Autumn 2012,
partly because of disagreements between the parties, but even more because of increasing
inter-union rivalries. As stressed above, in the 2012 elections for the unitary workplace
representation body (Table 8), the largest union, FP-CGIL, lost about 9 percentage points of
the votes compared with the 2007 elections and its number of seats decreased from 10 to 8,
out of a total of 15 seats. This decrease, linked to a number of organisations participating to
the 2012 election greater than in 2007, is probably due also to a dissatisfaction of employees
with an allegedly excessive collaborative policy adopted by the FP-CGIL, and a preference for
a more radical stance. The election results reflected, and at the same time stimulated, a
more confrontational union attitude towards the municipality and weakened the position
and relative strength of FP-CGIL, which, on the other hand, strengthened its links with the
new administration bringing one of its local leaders into the mayor’s cabinet. Moreover, a
few months after the elections, FP-CGIL lost the absolute majority of seats within the unitary
30
workplace representation body, because one of its representatives abandoned the union
and joined the SULPM-DICCAP, the professional union of local police employees which
previously had no seat.
Since Autumn 2012 union representatives have been divided, as shown by the dispute on
the local police service. The municipality intends to eliminate the night shift of the local
police workers (from midnight to 6.00 am), introduced in the year 2000, leaving to the state
police force the traffic and street control during the night, as it used to be before 2000, and
using private guards for the supervisory control of public buildings. Concentrating the local
police in the daily hours would allow the municipality to save money, prevent a possible staff
shortage and strengthen the safety and street control tasks of the local police workers.
In September 2012 FP-CGIL and the municipality signed a preliminary agreement which
approved the abolition of the night shift and regulated the new tasks of the local police. The
other unions opposed this change, which would deprive the workers of the night shift
allowance, and did not sign the preliminary agreement. The conflict was one of the reasons
that motivated one FP-CGIL representatives to leave the union and join the SULPM-DICCAP.
In subsequent negotiations, however, the other unions have not apparently been able to
offer a unitary alternative proposal to solve the problem, strengthening the municipality
position to proceed in its decisions even with the consensus of the sole FP-CGIL. This
ongoing dispute has considerably worsened the relationships between the unions, and
created tensions and instabilities in traditional social dialogue practices. On the one hand,
these inter-union rivalries risk weakening the position of workers’ organisations in future
negotiations with the municipality, on the other hand they deprive the municipal managers
of a traditionally cooperative counterpart. This happens when the new municipal
administration, elected in May 2012, has to define and start implementing medium and
long-term plans, including changes aimed at dealing with the consequences of the austerity
measures.
As described above, outsourcing solutions are slowly emerging, similarly to what happened
in Modena, although with more uncertainties and at a slower pace. If this choice will be
taken, the relationships with unions are bound to worsen. Despite internal divisions, unions
have already stated their opposition to outsourcing, both in the case of transfer of services
to foundations or other kinds of public-private organisations and in the case of outsourcing
to third sector organisations. Unions fear that any kind of externalisation would result in a
worsening of terms and conditions of employment.
As an organisation with a private legal status, a foundation could employ its personnel
according to the clauses of a private sector national collective agreement, probably one of
the collective agreements utilised in the third sector. These agreements offer worse pay and
working conditions than those established by the national agreement for Regions and
territorial authorities, and, according to past experience, at least in the social services sector,
it is unlikely that a private sector company level agreement would substantially fill the gap
between the two national collective agreements. Therefore terms and conditions of
employment would worsen. If this is the case for a publicly-owned organisation with a
31
private legal status, it is even more so for a third sector organisation, which employs its staff
according to third sector collective agreements.
As in Modena, a significant part of the staff of the outsourced services would consist of
temporary workers who, in the case of Sesto, would be however hired with permanent
employment contracts. Therefore externalisation would confront unions with a difficult
trade off between accepting the stabilisation of temporary workers in exchange of a
worsening of their terms and conditions of employment, or vice versa defending better
conditions without stabilisation. A true dilemma in a time of acute economic crisis and high
unemployment rate.
Comparison
The centrally imposed austerity measures on local government seem to promote a slow but
deep change in the role played by the municipalities. National legislation directly or
indirectly connected with the ISP, along with general measures affecting public sector
employment levels and turn-over ratios, constrain municipalities not only to start a
downsizing process, reducing the staff number, but also to progressively abandon the direct
provision of welfare services. Social assistance, childcare and education services for 0-6 year
old children, traditionally directly provided and run by Italian municipalities, are increasingly
given to private sector providers, both for profit and, especially, non-profit organisations. If
this trend continues, the municipalities would become similar to commissioning
organisations, in charge of planning, financing/purchasing and monitoring the services
provided by other, private sector organisations. This shift in the role played by the
municipality in the organization and provision of public services already started in previous
decades, but it would be accelerated and intensified as a consequence of the austerity
measures.
As seen above, staff reductions and potentially significant outsourcing processes of welfare
services, that in Modena have already started, could soon start in Sesto San Giovanni as well.
However, because of the strong opposition to “pure” externalisation and privatisation of
services by employees, trade unions and often local communities as well, in many cases the
municipality prefer to transfer the directly-run services to semi-autonomous organisations
controlled by the municipalities themselves. These organisations, such as foundations or
special companies, are partly free from the legal constraints on hiring and personnel
expenditures which are imposed on municipalities. In a sense, this service and personnel
transfer looks like an elusion of the ISP rules, but are often considered as a politically less
divisive and more easily viable solution by municipalities required to make unpopular
decisions.
The unions usually oppose these externalisation trends, given that they imply a worsening of
workers terms and conditions of employment. However, in an era of acute economic crisis,
the unions find it difficult to justify this position and are confronted with a dilemmatic
situation when the transfer of services to semi-autonomous or external organisation is
accompanied by the stabilisation of temporary workers, as it is shown in the case of Sesto.
The outsourcing processes are making it hard to promote or maintain a cooperative social
dialogue. In both cases traditional relationships between the municipality and trade unions
were highly cooperative, but there are signs of change underway. In the case of Modena,
32
relationships are clearly shifting to open conflict, a shift that is not apparently linked to an
occasional, limited dispute but is likely to last for a certain period of time. In the case of
Sesto San Giovanni, rivalries between unions are negatively affecting the relationship with
the municipality, creating tensions and instabilities in a context in which controversial issues
are likely to emerge in connection with the internal re-organisation process under exam by
the new administration. In this context, it is proving increasingly difficult to find shared
solutions also for other critical issues created by the government austerity measures, in
particular the lack of resources to fund adequate incentives for employees to provide
efficient and good quality services.
4. Conclusion
To conclude, let us address three broader questions. The first one concerns the type of
changes brought about by government austerity measures, and in particular whether they
consist only in short-term, quantitative cuts or in more structural, lasting reforms. To some
extent this implies also to consider the more general issue of the relationship between the
economic crisis and public service reforms (Hood, 2010; Pollitt, 2010). The second and third
questions regard the relationship between social dialogue institutions and practices and
austerity measures, in both directions: on one hand, whether and how social dialogue has
helped shaping and implementing austerity packages, and, on the other hand, whether and
how government austerity policies have affected and changed social dialogue institutions
and practices. In all cases there are similarities, but also variations between the levels.
As for the first question, both the national experience and the two case studies illustrated
above suggest a sort of trajectory from an initial stage in which simple quantitative measures
are adopted, with short-term effects on employment levels, recruitment of new personnel,
economic and career prospects of employees, to one in which deeper changes, with longer
term effects on the re-organization of service provision are detectable.
This trajectory can be a fruit of an original deliberate design, but also, in a sense, an almost
inevitable by-product of quantitative measures. Modena is a good example in point.
Employment levels slightly increased between 2002 and 2008, when they reached a peak,
then started to decline significantly as joint effect of both national measures severely
affecting turnover ratios in all Italian public administrations and the legislation connected
with the Internal Stability Pact, specifically directed to contain Regions and territorial
authorities expenditures, personnel expenditures included. From 2008 to 2012 the number
of employees declined by 7%, significantly more than in the entire Italian public sector. This
created a staff shortage problem that forced the municipality, with a view to preserving the
same level of service provision, to externalize in various forms (special companies,
foundations, private for profit and not-for profit organizations) part of the social and, to a
lesser extent, education services, and the temporary employees devoted to these activities.
This in turn implied a worsening of terms and conditions of employment of the
externalized/outsourced employees, since the collective agreements applied by the new
organizations have usually lower standards than public sector collective agreements. Also
the conditions of employees remained within the municipality have been negatively affected
by the austerity measures, as a consequence in particular of the legal constraints on salary
and career progressions of all public employees and the scarcity of resources even for
33
productivity and performance-related pay. The final outcome, so far, seems to be a slowly
changing role of municipalities in the area of social and education services, from direct
provision to a role of service ‘commissioning’, with an apparently decreasing quality of the
services provided to the citizens. An alternative solution to staff shortage problems,
sponsored by the unions, would be a deeper bureaucratic restructuring of the municipality,
based on processes of internal mobility and skill retraining, possibly to keep the entire
service provision in-house. But managers and elected authorities of the municipality look
sceptical on the efficacy of this solution, perhaps hoping to improve over time the capacity
and performance of the municipality as ‘service commissioner’.
Also the municipality of Sesto seems to be on the verge to follow a similar path towards a
greater externalization of services, although with some delay and a less clear-cut line of
development than in Modena, due also to the recent election of the new mayor which partly
paralyzed any wide-ranging decision. Although employment levels have been rather stable in
recent years, in Sesto as well the problems brought about by the austerity measures create
uncertainties and strains in the relationship between the municipality and the trade unions,
which are here to some extent more fragmented than in Modena.
The role of social dialogue in shaping and implementing austerity packages has been on the
whole limited, although with differences between the levels. A distinction is also needed
between institutions and practices. Social dialogue institutions, as explained above, have
been partially changed by the Brunetta reform, not by austerity measures. In response to
the unexpected effects of the ‘second privatization’, the role and autonomy of collective
bargaining as the main regulatory method of terms and conditions of employment have
been to some extent reduced by the Brunetta reform, in favour partly of managerial
prerogatives and partly of the role of legislation. What the crisis did was to freeze the
practice of public sector social dialogue, even in its reformed configuration. At national level
social dialogue did not play any significant role in shaping austerity measures, which were
adopted unilaterally by the government without trade union consultation. These measures,
in turn, among other effects, froze the machinery of national sector-level collective
bargaining for almost two bargaining rounds, and drastically reduced the resources for
decentralized negotiations at single employer level. In the Regions and territorial authorities
subsector these effects have been further strengthened by the rules of the Internal Stability
Pact. The case of Modena, again, well highlights the mutually reinforcing effect of these
partly different sets of constraints. National level austerity measures and ISP rules affect
employment levels, creating a problem of staff shortage. This forces the municipality to
pursue some externalization processes which are unanimously opposed by trade unions and
workplace representation bodies. But the municipality reacts asserting that the 2009
Brunetta reform strengthened unilateral managerial prerogatives and significantly reduced
the number of negotiable matters at decentralized level. The combined effect of institutional
reform, national level austerity measures and Internal Stability Pact rules is to freeze the
practice of social dialogue, or to make it ineffective, even where it used to be a consolidate
tradition, soundly based on tight relationships between center-left oriented municipalities
and strong trade unions dominated by the Cgil.
Finally, to come to Hood’s and Pollitt’s questions, did the crisis blocked or prompted
structural reforms? Or did it left business as usual, with just some window dressing? In the
light of previous analysis, the latter option can be excluded, while the answer is more
34
articulated with regard to the other options. The implementation of the Brunetta reform,
that was adopted to some extent independently from the economic crisis, few months after
its approval was frozen by government austerity measures in all its features related to
employment relations and collective bargaining at national level. But its effects are visible at
decentralized level, by limiting the scope of negotiable matters and encouraging
unilateralism in union-management relations even in contexts where social dialogue had a
sound tradition. In the municipal subsector, government austerity measures together with
the tightened rules of the Internal Stability Pact and the strengthened unilateral prerogatives
given to the public employer seem to accelerate a trend towards processes of
externalization of activities and personnel, leading to a significant change in the role of
municipalities in the provision of public services.
35
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