On November 26, 2016, after a long negotiation of one year, Federmeccanica and Assistal undersigned with the trade unions organizations Fim-Cisl, Fiom-Cgil and Uilm-Uil a draft agreement for the renewal of the National Collective Agreement for the employees of the industrial sector.

The draft agreement was subject to a referendum among employees, which was held in the middle of December (December 19, 20 and 21, 2016) and terminated with a favourable vote to the adoption of the new contract by the employees.

The renewal of the NCA has a four-year validity, from 2016 to 2019. The agreement provides for an average salary in-crease of approx. 92 Euro on a monthly basis, including base salary, welfare and training.

Here below is a brief summary on the main novelties of the agreement.

SALARY INCREASE

The agreement establishes the payment to the employees of a lump sum gross amount equal to 80 Euro (to be paid with the payslip of March 2017), beyond 51.70 Euro month-ly for the inflation recovery starting from June 2017.

The agreement provides also that increases of the mini-mum wage will absorb any subsequent company or individual increase granted to employees, except in the case that an express clause has been set.

WELFARE

The new NCA establishes a wage increase of EUR 400 net – so called "flexible benefits plans" – in three years (EUR 100 for 2017, EUR 150 for 2018 and EUR 150 for 2019), starting from June 2017, in the form of welfare (these are various benefits such as fuel vouchers, expenses for the assistance of children and elderly, education).

COMPLEMENTARY WELFARE

Companies will pay a 2% quota of the contractual minimum (compared with the previous 1,6%), starting from June 2017, to the employees who will be enrolled in the COMETA pension fund, which provides with pension contributions supplementary to those of the public pension system.

SUPPLEMENTARY HEALTH ASSISTANCE

Starting from October 2017, all employees will be enrolled to the supplementary health assistance fund metaSalute, which provides for a contribution equal to EUR 156 on a yearly basis, paid by the companies. The assistance is granted to all employees, their families, as well as to their cohabitants.

TRAINING

Starting from January 1, 2017, companies will involve employees under undetermined contract in training courses of 24 hours on a three-year basis.

PARENTAL LEAVES

The father worker and the mother worker, during the first 12 years of life of each child, are entitled to a parental leave for an overall period of 10 months which can be used, other than on a daily or continuative basis, also on hourly basis (every 2 or 4 hours).

TRANSFERS

For the individual transfers of the workplace, the age be-yond which transfers can take place only in exceptional cases has been increased to 52 years (in the previous NCA it was 50 years) for men and to 48 years for women (in the previous NCA it was 45 years). Moreover, the relevant discipline is not applicable in case of transfers within a 25-kilometre range from the office or premises in which the employee works.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.