The New National Collective Bargaining Agreement for Large-Scale Retailers (Did We Really Need Another National Collective Bargaining Agreement?)
After a rather tormented genesis of almost 5 years, on January 1st, 2019, the National Collective Bargaining Agreement for Large-Scale Retailers came in force. Hence, the landscape of Italian industrial relations has been enriched by (yet another) National Collective Bargaining Agreement.
This, of course, raises the question as to whether Italy actually needed a further NCBA. It is widely known that Italian industrial relations are facing a significant fragmentation (with the peril of a progressive erosion of contractual power and protections for workers). Between 2008 and 2015 (according to the last data available), the total amount of NCBAs raised from 398 to 706; i.e. an increase of more than 230%). This is, on one hand, due to the increasing difficulty to fit new kind of workers into the traditional categories of individual and collective employment law. On the other hand, the phenomenon can be ascribed to an ontological weakness of the player on the marketplace, where new employers’ associations and new autonomous trade union organizations are longing for “leaving a mark”. Many of the above-mentioned NCBAs have almost no actual implementation and do therefore unnecessarily complicate the landscape of Italian NCBAs, without providing any benefit to the players on the market.
But does this also apply to the new NCBA for Large-Scale Retailers?
The answer is: Not really.
Since years, the players in this specific Industry – which includes various forms of modern business models (i.a. shopping centers, super- and hypermarkets, discount markets, cash & carry, etc.) – complain about the fact that the traditionally applied NCBA (mainly the NCBA Commerce Services and Tertiary Sector) does not really fit with the needs of large-scale retailers. Evidence on the actual demand of the market for this new instrument can be found in the circumstance that, only a few days after the new NCBA came into force numerous significant players started applying this new NCBA: i.a.Auchan, Carrefour, Esselunga, Leroy Merlin, IKEA, Pam Panorama, La Rinascente, Coin, Decathlon, Despar, Metro, OVS made this choice; other players revealed the vivid interest in the new NCBA and might consider to follow their example. Thus, already now, the new NCBA rules hundreds of employment relationships and it is very likely that the NCBA for Large-Scale Retailers will remain well-present on the landscape of the Italian collective bargaining agreements over the next years.