Unions, the national leader of Uilm Rocco Palombella in Bergamo

Bergamo. More salary, less hours. This is the slogan under which the general council of Uilm Bergamo Cremona took place. The general secretary of Uilm was also present at the Casa del Giovane on Friday 19 April Rocco Palombella.

Many topics were touched upon, especially with respect to the platform presented by the trade unions for the renewal of the collective agreement.

One of the requests made by the unions, in particular by Uilm which thanks to Palombella plays a leading role in the negotiations, concerns an increase of 280 euros more per month in the pay slip to recover inflation: “The companies have recovered it by increasing the cost of their products, the State consequently took its share while the workers lost this money. An increase in wages is essential in order to keep the purchasing power of workers and their families intact”, declared the General Secretary of Uilm Bergamo Cremona Emilio Lollio.

The issue of safety at work is fundamental for Uilm: “We must give a strong signal, we want to pursue the objective of Zero Deaths at Work and the new Ccnl must help us achieve it by intervening on precarious employment and regulating procurement. We also need more training for professional classification and we too as a union must do our part.”

Another topic covered concerns Metasalute, the health fund for metalworkers: “We believe in a national health system that works and this Saturday 20 April we will be in Rome to demonstrate to raise awareness of the Government on this issue. With Metasalute we have had good responses and we will ask for 4 euros more per month to allow workers in the sector to access a whole series of health services in agreement”.

The reduction of working hours is a theme dear to the National Secretary, as Lollio explains: “We at Uilm, together with Rocco, are making it a battle and I believe we will emerge victorious. We want a greater work/life balance, a necessary condition also to make our sector more attractive for new generations of workers”.

Many interventions were made by the delegates present at the general council: each spoke about their own working reality, the problems encountered in companies, and their concerns for the future.

The conclusions of the morning were entrusted to Palombella: “With over 70 thousand metalworkers and thousands of companies, the provinces of Bergamo and Cremona are a great resource for the Italian industrial and manufacturing heritage. For this reason, the renewal of the Federmeccanica-Assistal CCNL that we are about to negotiate is of great importance. As you know, on 11 April the results of the workers’ vote on the Fim Fiom and Uil platform were announced, which found very high consensus with 98% in favor of the issues we presented. In total we held 500 meetings in 365 companies and we reiterated our slogan ‘more wages and less hours’, convinced that these are the driving elements of the next renewal”, began the General Secretary.

“In these territories – continued the Uilm leader – 2024 began with a slowdown in production and requests for social safety nets are increasing. There are positive companies, such as those of Brembo and Tenaris, but also companies that have some difficulties such as Bedeschi, Itema, Evoca. We are in the negotiation phase for the renewal of the supplementary contract at Acciaieria Arvedi in Cremona and in the process of renewing RSU in Tenaris, ABB and in some medium-small companies”.

“In the coming months – adds Palombella – we will be engaged in negotiations with Federmeccanica and Assistal. It won’t be easy, we are aware of that. Among the 11 points of the platform, the two central ones stand out: the request for an increase of 280 euros over the three-year period to the average level on the minimums and the experimentation of reducing working hours to 35 hours per week. With the increase in wages we want to adapt the salaries of our metalworkers, which are the lowest in Europe, to the cost of living while also guaranteeing respect for our Constitution; with the reduction of working hours for equal pay we want, on the one hand, to manage company crises to reduce the use of redundancy payments and, on the other, to make factories more attractive for the younger generations”.

“In our contractual platform – concludes Palombella – there are many other topics of fundamental importance: health and safety, equal opportunities, training, industrial relations, participation, procurement, stabilization of precarious work, welfare and much more. We are certain that once again metalworkers will lead the way in an innovative contractual season that looks to the future with courage. The ecological transition and artificial intelligence do not scare us, we want to govern them and convince companies and institutions to be on the side of workers”.