IN MARGHERA – First joint meeting of the region’s leading industrial associations
Autonomy in contracts: Zafia says, “Our needs are not the same as those of other regions.” Boccia says, “This is how we’ll save businesses.”
VENICE – “Second-level collective agreements are a good thing because they are a form of autonomy.” So said Luca Zaia, President of the Veneto Region, in Marghera on the sidelines of the assembly of industrialists from Treviso, Padua and Vicenza, which focused precisely on the issue of company-level collective bargaining. “We spoke of regional collective bargaining long before it became a hot topic and were attacked from all over Italy,” recalled Zaia. “Even those who are not openly in favour of autonomy are ‘crypto-autonomists’, in the sense that they share the demands for autonomy. The needs of industry and workers in Veneto are not the same as those in other regions, and it is right that each region should have its own collective bargaining arrangements.” For the first time, industrialists from the three most productive provinces held their annual meeting together, attended, amongst others, by the national president Vincenzo Boccia, the Minister for Labour Giuliano Poletti and Susanna Camusso, leader of the CGIL. The business leaders have decided to focus on regional collective bargaining – thus decoupled from national agreements – and this proposal is gaining widespread support.
