Solidarity, Social Services, Italy

(May 2016) The three main public sector federations - Fp-Cgil, Cisl-FP and Uil-Fpl - organised a national mobilisation on 19 May as part of a campaign to improve and increase childcare services and the pay and conditions of childcare workers. The unions have raised concerns about inadequate staffing levels, too few nurseries, particularly for the 0-3 age group and precarious working conditions for childcare workers. They have called for an urgent meeting with the government to discuss these issues. Read more at Fp-Cgil (IT)

(April 2017) Unions from the three confederations came together on 27 March to organise strike action in support of their claims for around 20000 workers in private residential homes for the elderly. The four unions involved (Fp Cgil, Fisascat Cisl, Uiltucs Uil and Uil Fpl) have rejected proposals from the Anaste employers' organisation that involve an increase in working time and a small pay increase after several years of pay increases. The unions have a raft of proposals to improve the pay and working conditions in the sector underlining the need for quality work to ensure quality services

(April 2017) The unions organising workers in private eldercare companies that are part of the Adaste employers' organisation reported very solid support for the strike on 27 March. The level of support was anything from 70% across the different regions with some local unions facing problems where employers refused to negotiate minimum service arrangements. The four unions - FP CGIL, Fisascat Cisl, Uiltucs UIL and UIL FPL, have rejected an employers' offer of a EUR 19 increase after several years of pay freezes and want an increase of EUR 110.

(May 2017) The FP-CGIL and CISL FP public service federations have attacked the Anaste private residential care employers' organisation for signing an agreements with unrepresentative unions and cutting out the main federations affiliated to the CGIL, CISL and UIL confederations. Around 15000 workers are covered by the agreement which the CGIL, CISL and UIL federations had been negotiating. The three unions took strike action on 27 April to try to improve pay and working conditions and are highly critical of the agreement now signed with the other unions.

The FP-CGIL trade union federation has met with public administration minister Giulia Bongiorno to set out four urgent priorities for action. These involve tackling precarious employment, increasing employment, negotiating the next collective agreement that will cover the years 2019-2021 and ensuring increased investment in staff training. The union argues that it is not enough to simply end the freeze on recruitment as more needs to be done to boost employment or run the risk of a further decline in the quality of services. FP-CGIL also wants a limit on health spending lifted to allow for

The three main unions representing the 20000 employees of the ANPAS non-profit national emergency and social assistance organisation have negotiated a new collective agreement covering the period 2017-2019. With a basic increase of EUR 85 (worth around 5.7% for emergency drivers) the agreement follows the pattern in the public sector. There are several other key provisions including improvements related to training, sickness and injury, quotas for fixed-term contracts, and rights for women who are the victims of violence. The unions hope that this will help push forward other agreements in the

The four main public service unions - FP-CGIL, CISL-FP, UIL-PA and UIL-FPL - have together launched a major campaign and petition calling for action to improve public services and deliver better employment conditions. The four unions have drawn up a document with 11 key proposals that cover calls for increased public investment; substantial recruitment of new workers and improved training provision; better union representation; finalising outstanding collective agreements for the 2016-2018 period and ensuring resources for the next round of agreements for 2019-21; bringing back privatised

Public services federations in CGIL, CSIL and UIL, representing also workers in third sector social services have negotiated a new agreement with the ANFFAS organisation that represents employers providing disability services. The agreement includes several new features - strengthening trade union relations, improving rules on working hours and sickness, extension of the right to training, improvements to parental leave and work-life balance and measures to restrict flexibility such as a limit on fixed-term contracts. There is an overall pay increase of 5% with an average of EUR 450 paid out

The three main confederations - CGIL, CISL and UIL - organised a joint demonstration on 9 February to protest over government policies. They set out a broad range of demands including the creation of quality jobs, increased public and private investment, fair and equitable tax policies, a revaluation of pensions, measures to improve the provision of welfare, health, education and other public services and renewal of collective agreements in the public sector. EPSU sent a message of support.

Five workers from the private health sector spoke at the rally on 15 April calling for a new agreement for the sector, 12 years after the last one was signed. The five workers - including nurses, a hospital manager and disability care worker - spoke about the challenges of surviving on pay levels unchanged for more than a decade and in the case of one for 17 years. Along with this they often face increasing work pressures as a result of staff shortages and even have to pay for their own training. In one hospital a nurse starts on only EUR 1350 a month and an experienced nurse gets only EUR

The FP-CGIL public services federation has called a strike of social workers in Naples on 27 August in protest at the failure of the local administration to address the drastic shortage of staff in the city. There are only 126 social workers serving a population of just under a million and the union says that at least an additional 55 are needed. The administration has said it will only recruit around 40 staff in 2021-22 whereas the situation is set to worsen before then as some of the current staff retire.