(Finance) – The president of the Guarantee fee the implementation of the strike law in essential public services, Ursula Razzolinicertified that “coinciding with the crisis pandemic” there was evidence of “a reduction in the conflict. In particular, it has passed by 1.617 strikes carried out in 2017 to 894 in 2020 (year of the pandemic crisis), 1,009 in 2021 and 1,129 in 2022“. These data emerged from the Annual Report presented in Rome at the Authority’s headquarters. “The renewals of Collective agreement certainly constitute one of the possible explanations – although not the only one – of the significant reduction of conflict in the environmental hygiene, telecommunications, cleaning and multi-service sectors,” he said.
“The epidemiological emergency has forced all (or almost) productive enterprises to a hasty conversion towards carrying out work in the form of the so-called smart working o agile work – he added – by pushing the processes forward digitization already in place. On the one hand, this has changed the habits of workers and citizen users of the essential public servicesand, on the other hand, it has involved a great commitment for the companies supplying the services in the transformation of processes productive and in the remodeling of the commercial offer”.
In general, wrote President Razzolini, “theeffectiveness of the preventive activity exercised by this Authority. In these six years, the adjustments to directions of the Commission and the withdrawals of strike actions following an invitation to do so amounted to a percentage of 95%”.
“There is no doubt that, in a context characterized by a certain conflict rate and crossed in recent years by dramatic and disruptive events such as the crisis pandemicthe war and theinflation emergency – continued the president -, the effectiveness of the Commission’s preventive interventions, as well as the low recourse to sanctioning instruments, underlie a consolidated acceptance by the social partners of the preventive and regulatory function exercised daily by this Authority”. To this end, she noted the president, “the importance of a constant search for the involvement of the social partners in the policy decisions adopted by the Authority remains firm, in keeping with the inspiration and basic approach of Law 146 of 1990”.
Razzolini then highlighted thewave of strikes which characterized theEurope in the last months. The president explained the phenomenon by citing three factors: energy crisis, economic uncertainty, inflation and the consequent increase in the cost of living. “Wave which, however, only partially affected our country”, she underlined.
“The very strong inconvenience that have resulted for the citizens – highlighted the president – have inevitably triggered, at a European level, a debate public on the need for more regulation of the strike in essential public services“. “The peculiarities of the Italian regulatory framework” and “the system of protections put in place help to explain”, moreover, “why in Italy, unlike in other European countries, the effects of a strike cannot include the total impairment of the essential public service provided”.