The four CCNLs (National Contract for the Tertiary Distribution Services – Confcommercio, National Contract for Modern Organized Distribution – Federdistribuzione, CCNL Cooperative Distribution – COOP, CCNL Tertiary, Distribution and Services (TDS) – Confesercenti) will expire on March 31, 2027. Except for the Cooperative Distribution contract, which has maintained its own peculiarity over time, the other three are essentially a copy of the main contract originally signed by Confcommercio. However, each employer organization jealously guards its own CCNL despite not having any specific features. It is an important proselytizing tool: those who do not have it, despite having a significant presence in the tertiary market (such as Confindustria or Confimprese themselves), are envious.
The presence of multiple contracts applicable in the same sector neutralizes each other and prevents any innovative ambition. On the contrary. They are confined to a common drift. A race to the “discount.” For this reason, once one is renewed, all are renewed, one might say. Personally, I believe that unifying them, while guaranteeing each specificity and ownership, would be a test of common sense and foresight. The only condition for renewing their contents. Otherwise, fierce competition will be aimed precisely at their marginalization. Employer organizations, lacking better options, could dust off the evergreen slogan “march divided to strike united,” but associative competitiveness makes any agreement between them “leonine.” Confcommercio accepted Federdistribuzione’s return to Est and Quas probably hoping for a path of reconciliation, but associative logics always prevail over acceptance of a common vision. Perhaps a change of pace is necessary to restore a credible framework.
On the other side of the table, the category unions, who, while “dreaming” of a simplification of the reference framework (partly also due to them), have decided, in view of the expiration, to try to prepare and then send the same platform to the different interlocutors. A good sign. For this reason, the three national executives representing the governing bodies of the confederal category unions met to start their internal debate, the summary of which will be the presentation of the renewal platform. At the joint meeting, 150 participants representing the three trade unions were called to contribute to the process of defining the requests to be submitted, already in the coming days, to the consultation of female and male workers.
In my opinion, this renewal is the last chance to prevent work, its recognition, and its rules in GDO from taking two distinct paths. On one side, the professional figures that the brands need and cannot find, and on the other, the mass of labor that risks being confined to the margins. Potentially reserved for immigrants, the elderly, and forced part-timers with high turnover rates.
To avoid this drift, the political exchange, in addition to defining the methods of wage adjustment and the recovery formulas necessary in case of delays in renewals, must grasp the near trajectories of work and must not look at reality through the rearview mirror. This means building a greater trust relationship between the parties. It means reasoning, for example, on sectoral or territorial bargaining rather than company-level, trying to rebuild a classification based on reality, on the difference between formats, on increasingly linking part of the salary to company performance. Either the level of involvement on results and concrete problems is increased, or the simple power relations, currently unbalanced, will stop any possible change.
Working together on “distinctiveness” cannot be a unilateral approach. A term that accompanied the previous renewal in the GDO but could not produce anything significant. First, due to the obvious superficiality of the GDO negotiators who thought it sufficient, in a negotiation where the parties must have equal dignity, to have a place to list demands in exchange for what for the unions was simply due. In fact, at a certain point, President Buttarelli himself had to intervene to close a matter that otherwise would have led to defections far greater than those already suffered. I add that the simultaneity of other negotiation tables on the same subject has effectively neutralized any ambition.
For now, within the union, we are at the “premise of the premise.” Soon the document that we will not fail to comment on. The issues, anticipated in the first internal debate and to be addressed, are however evident to all. At the center of the discussion are work, part-time above all and not only (increase of the minimum hours, some corrections to the flexible clause pact), a rebalancing of fixed-term contracts, a revision of Sunday work with the setting of a maximum limit for those who have their rest day not falling on Sunday. Other topics to address concern franchising, outsourcing, the fight against discrimination, and the need to relaunch methods of dialogue at the decentralized level.
The choice to present 4 identical platforms was predictable and foreshadows an equally homogeneous already written ending. This should also make the employer side reflect. The presence of multiple contracts usable in the same sector is unfortunately a weakness that will prejudice their contents. The tendency to migrate towards the most convenient CCNL has already appeared with the adoption in several situations of the so-called pirate contracts. And if the major ones do not find a negotiated path, they risk issuing a dated and outdated text. And this, in the context ahead of us, is not good for the sector.
