In Umbria there are around 300 active social cooperatives that provide personal services and are involved in the employment of disadvantaged people. 9,500 workers are employed in the 300 Umbrian social cooperatives. Of these, around 1000 are people with disabilities or disadvantaged people. We must consider that the aggregate production value of the Umbrian social cooperative is approximately 300 million euros and that the contractual renewal will produce an increase in labor costs of 10 million euros in 2016, 25 million euros in 2025, which will reach 30 million in 2026.
Another important element is that 90% of the revenues of Umbrian social cooperatives are revenues that derive from a contract that the cooperatives have with a public administration, local health authorities, municipalities, schools and other territorial bodies. It is therefore clear that only with a timely adaptation of contracts by public administrations will social cooperation be able to guarantee the significant increase in wages for workers.
The approval by the Regional Council of the DGR, which defines the new tariffs relating to social and health services, is an extremely important act because it adapts these tariffs taking into account the higher labor costs resulting from the renewal of the National Collective Labor Agreement for Social Cooperation. And it concludes a process of reform of social and health services started by this Council at the beginning of the legislature. This act is extremely important also because it heals a delay accumulated by the Umbria Region over the last 15 years and an even more significant element because it concludes a process of reform of the regulatory model of the Umbria Region.
In the relations that the Region has with third sector bodies and with private social entities, the reform of the regulatory model has seen two important steps: the first in 2023 with the approval of the regional law on shared administration and the second in 2024, with the approval of the regional law on the quality of work in personal services. Finally, given that in recent months the social cooperation contract has been renewed and a renewal that allows workers to recover purchasing power and which however also generates a significant cost increase of over 15 percentage points for companies.
And in my opinion it is also useful to point out another fact, namely that the Regional Council has given a clear indication to the ASL companies that have adapted the contracts in place with the social cooperatives. So on the one hand there is the publication of the new tariffs, on the other hand we also have the appropriate contracts from the local health authorities. I want to close these considerations with a negative note, which does not concern the Umbria Region but which concerns the Municipalities of Umbria. In fact, as regards the cancellation of the contracts that the Municipalities have with the social cooperatives, we have some rare virtuous cases, that is, situations in which the Municipalities, as happened in Città di Castello in Orvieto, have adapted the existing contracts. And then we have a large series of cases in which the Municipalities to date have not yet made this improvement.
In some cases they have taken direction which, however, does not concretely win the administrations. And this is why we ask all the Municipalities, starting from the leading Municipalities of the social areas, to behave as the ASL companies did in Umbria and therefore to immediately adapt, with validity from 1 February, the contracts they have with the social cooperatives.
Source: Legacoopsociali Umbria
