With the ruling published on 23 April 2024, the Court of Florence accepted the request of three workers from the Geos cooperative of Empoli, members of the Basic Trade Union Union, to be granted the right contractual framework (D2).
These workers, who carry out educational services employed by the Geos-Onlus cooperative that manages public services under contract, for years had been working with a contractual framework that was not adequate for their job description.
The Court therefore forced the Cooperative to classify the educators at the correct contractual level, also condemning it to pay all arrears and legal costs.
Keeping workers at a lower level than they deserve is unfortunately one of the many bad practices widespread among cooperatives that work on public contracted services. To win such competitive bidding, cooperatives tend to save on workers’ rights and place the business risk on their shoulders.
The recognition of the correct contractual level included in the latest renewal of the Coop Sociali CCNL was late. The Central Cooperatives and CGIL CISL and UIL, aware of the fact that many female workers were turning to USB to file lawsuits to have their correct classification recognized, clumsily tried to put a “patch” in 2026, but without repairing everyone’s injustice this years.
These educational services, in all schools of all levels, are carried out in Italy by approximately 70,000 workers, mostly women, with various names or acronyms (Autonomy and Communication Assistants, AEC, OEPAC, Asacom, etc.) but they all share a lack of recognized rights and low wages.
This ruling is yet another demonstration of how urgent it is to overcome the procurement system for permanent personal care services. The lowest-cost procurement system produces poor work, permanent precariousness and undermines the dignity of both the workers who carry out the service and the users who benefit from it.
The Basic Union is therefore fighting for the internalisation of all permanent public services as the only solution to overcome this state of affairs which is not acceptable in a civilized country.
For info and contacts: Matteo Conti 3804100436 [email protected]
Paolo Vecchi 3393363713 [email protected]
