Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 13:43:37 -0400
Subject: AUT: Fwd: Ground-breaking agreement signed at Telecom Italia call centre
From: Enda Brophy <2eob-AT-qlink.queensu.ca>


Maybe the major trade unions in Italy are having to respond to the 
critique of precarious labour posed by social movements...  Or perhaps 
this is just a naive reading of the situation (the discussion of 
continued productivity below would indicate that it is...). I know the 
CUB and other rank-and-file unions have made small gains in organizing 
call centre workers in the last few years.  Anyone aware of responses 
to this agreement by more militant unions or groups such as 
chainworkers, etc?

e.

> Subject: Ground-breaking agreement signed at Telecom Italia call centre
>
> http://www.eiro.eurofound.eu.int/2004/07/feature/it0407303f.html
>
>  
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> european industrial relations observatory on-line
>
>  
>
> Country:ITALY
>
>  
>
> Ground-breaking agreement signed at Telecom Italia call centre
>
>  
>
> After some months of negotiations between management and trade unions, 
> in May 2004 a collective agreement was signed at Atesia, the call 
> centre for Telecom Italia (Italy's largest telecoms operator). The 
> deal aims to achieve greater job stability, by gradually changing the 
> status of all 4,350 'employer-coordinated freelance workers' at Atesia 
> so that, in the great majority of cases, they can become employees 
> proper. This change to the employment relationship has been made 
> necessary by a 2003 labour market reform law (the 'Biagi law'), which 
> abolishes employer-coordinated freelance contracts. The unions have 
> welcomed the agreement as the first of its kind, and see it as a 
> blueprint for similar agreements in the future.
>
>  
>
> In Italy, outsourced call centres employ 180,000 people, of whom 65% 
> are women and 10,000 work on freelance contracts. Because call-centre 
> services are not regarded as their core business by companies, they 
> are outsourced to specialised companies that make large-scale use of 
> 'atypical', non-subordinate employment contracts. In order to regulate 
> the sector, on 3 March 2004, the main trade union confederations - the 
> General Confederation of Italian Workers (Confederazione Generale 
> Italiana del Lavoro, Cgil), the Italian Confederation of Workers’ 
> Unions (Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori, Cisl) and the 
> Union of Italian Workers (Unione Italiana del Lavoro, Uil) - and the 
> National Association of Call Centre Services (Associazione Nazionale 
> Servizi di Call Center, Assocolcenter) employers' organisations signed 
> the first national collective agreement covering workers on 
> 'employer-coordinated freelance contracts' (a status midway between 
> dependent employment and self-employment) in outsourced call centres 
> (IT0403203F). However, the deal did not apply to Atesia, the services 
> centre for the fixed and mobile telephony network of Telecom Italia 
> (as well as for third parties), as Telecom Italia (Italy's largest 
> telecoms operator) is not among the 32 companies affiliated to 
> Assocolcenter.
>
>  
>
> Atesia, is the leading company in Italy's call centre and market 
> research sector and its main shareholder is Telecom Italia. A 
> distinctive feature is the prevalent use made of employer-coordinated 
> freelance workers (collaboratori coordinati e continuativi) 
> (IT0308304F), some 4,000 of them, while only 177 of Atesia workers are 
> dependent employees.
>
>  
>
> Because the March 2004 agreement did not cover Atesia, the trade 
> unions opened talks with the Telecom Italia group. The negotiations, 
> which involved the Cgil, Cisl and Uil confederations and their 
> sectoral unions - respectively the Communications Workers Union 
> (Sindacato lavoratori della comunicazione, Slc-Cgil), the Federation 
> of Entertainment, Information and Telecommunications Workers 
> (Federazione dello spettacolo dell’informazione e delle 
> telecomunicazioni, Fistel-Cisl) and the Italian Communications Workers 
> Union (Unione italiana lavoratori della comunicazione, Uilcom) - 
> concluded on 24 May 2004 with the signing of an agreement. The deal 
> was also made necessary by the labour market reforms introduced by 
> legislative decree no. 276/2003 (IT0307204F), which provided for the 
> abolition of employer-coordinated freelance work and sought to curb 
> the indiscriminate, if not fraudulent, use of semi-subordinate labour.
>
>  
>
> The agreement
>
>  
>
> The new agreement covers all 4,350 of Atesia’s employer-coordinated 
> freelance workers, whose contracts will be extended until December 
> 2004. From the early months of 2005 onwards, their employment 
> relationships will be converted - by means of company-level deals to 
> implement the agreement and harmonise regulations - into various types 
> of contract which in the majority of cases (70%) will be for dependent 
> employment, with a view to job stabilisation. The industry-wide 
> agreement for the telecommunications industry will then be applied - 
> in all its aspects - to the call-centre workers. The workers' place of 
> work will remain in Rome.
>
>  
>
> The agreement is all the more important because it also reorganises 
> the company's structure. The 4,350 workers will be divided between two 
> companies, with the hiving off of Atesia’s fixed-telephony branch to 
> Telecontact, the group’s call centre owned entirely by Telecom Italia. 
> Of the workers transferred to Telecontact, 600 will have 
> apprenticeship or 'work-entry' contracts and 750 will have fixed-term 
> 'staff leasing contracts' (contratti di somministrazione di lavoro) - 
> formerly temporary agency contracts (IT0307204F). As regards the 
> workers remaining with Atesia, which will continue to run the 
> mobile-telephony business (Tim) and whose controlling share will be 
> taken over by a major national operator in the sector (the identity of 
> which is not yet known), 1,100 workers will have apprenticeship 
> contracts, 550 will have work-entry contracts and 1,350 will be 
> 'project workers' (IT0404303F) hired to deal with fixed-term orders. 
> The project workers will have priority should they apply for 
> open-ended vacancies arising in the company.
>
>  
>
> Future agreements implementing the agreement should define the types 
> of workers concerned, who will be hired on varying types of contract 
> depending on their age (apprenticeship contracts for workers aged 
> under 29, work-entry contracts for those over 50). However, on 
> conclusion of the duration stipulated by law for each type of 
> contract, the workers will be hired by the company on an open-ended 
> basis.
>
>  
>
> Reactions
>
>  
>
> Both the employers’ organisations and the trade unions have welcomed 
> the agreement. For Confindustria, the country's largest employers’ 
> organisation, the deal is one of the first to apply the 2003 law 
> reforming the labour market (the 'Biagi law') and proves that the 
> legislation offers numerous opportunities to reconcile the flexibility 
> needs of firms with the protection of workers. Indeed, because the law 
> directs a large number of precarious workers towards structured forms 
> of dependent employment by introducing training-based contracts 
> (apprenticeships) and forms of regulated and bargained flexibility 
> (work-entry contracts), it is seen by Confindustria as benefiting 
> worker protection and employment creation as well as promoting the 
> selective 'regularisation' of numerous forms of 'grey' employment 
> (such as employer-coordinated freelance contracts).
>
>  
>
> For the general secretary of Cgil, Guglielmo Epifani, the Atesia deal 
> is a good agreement because it shifts the call centre of Italy’s 
> largest telecoms company away from the 'logic of precariousness', and 
> shows that when it is the social partners that agree on such issues, 
> the aim is always quality and job stabilisation. In Cgil’s view, the 
> agreement marks an important turning point, because it shows that call 
> centres and their activities are no longer considered peripheral to 
> companies’ interests, with the consequent large-scale use of 
> precarious workers. According to the general secretary of Uil, Paolo 
> Pirani, the deal is the first major agreement achieved since approval 
> of the Biagi law and will open the way for other agreements in future.
>
>  
>
> Commentary
>
>  
>
> The agreement signed by Telecom Italia and the trade union 
> confederations is undoubtedly a ground-breaking deal which will serve 
> as a model for similar situations. The most important aspect of the 
> agreement is that it enables flexibility to be reconciled with worker 
> protection, in that it enables 3,000 workers to switch - gradually by 
> means of apprenticeships, work-entry contracts, fixed-term staff 
> leasing contracts - from atypical forms of employment to standard > ones.
>
>  
>
> The increase in the costs to the company will be limited and gradual, 
> besides complying with the logic of a business policy centred on 
> valuing the 'human factor' and on service quality. Finally, the 
> agreement again confirms the crucial importance of collective 
> bargaining - in this case at company-level - in specifying a sharp 
> distinction between dependent employment and forms of work often used 
> unlawfully to conceal subordinate employment relationships (Livio 
> Muratore, Ires Lombardia).
>
>


>


>


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