Salaries of cleaners and carers: agreement within 24 hours or the sting will start

ROME. No glimmer, 24 hours from the decisive table at the Ministry of Labour, convened for tomorrow morning. Yesterday there were no contacts between the trade unions of domestic workers and the employers’ associations. The hypothesized videoconference meeting, to attempt yet another mediation on the inflation adjustment of the salaries of cleaners and carers, was not held. A sign that the negotiation is stalled and that, barring surprises, tomorrow it will be necessary to acknowledge that there is no margin to avoid bloodletting families at the beginning of 2023.

In fact, without agreement an adjustment of the minimum wage will be triggered automatically, to an extent equal to 80% of inflation. According to the estimates of Assindatcolf and Fidaldo (Italian federation of domestic employers), we are talking about a +9.2% compared to 2022, with increases in the monthly salary ranging from 85 to over 100 euros, based on the type of contract ( cohabiting worker or not) and the actual hours of the service. Also calculating the contributions, holidays, the thirteenth month installment and the severance pay, for many families this would lead to an additional expense of almost 2,000 euros over the course of the year. The latest proposal put on the table by the employers is to guarantee an adjustment of more than 80% (we are talking about 85%), but triggering it in the spring, with relative savings for family budgets. But the unions have raised the wall, relaunching with a higher percentage: “If the adjustment is only valid for 8 months, then it must be close to 100%”, is the reasoning.

For Andrea Zini, president of Assindatcolf, «there is no room for an agreement, which must be convenient for both parties – he explains – however we will try until the end». If this tug-of-war continues tomorrow as well, the automatic threshold of 80% will be an inevitable epilogue. “I think it will end like this, also because we are not willing to derogate from a precise right of workers”, warns Emanuela Loretone, of Filcams CGIL, pessimistic about the possibility of reaching mediation in extremis: “I don’t think there are the conditions”. As for the fear of the employers’ associations, on a further expansion of undeclared work, in a sector that already today sees about 60% of the employees not in compliance, it is an “unfounded alarm, functional to push the negotiation in a certain direction” .

Mauro Munari of Uiltucs is more optimistic: «We are willing to think about times and percentages, provided that it is not the workers who lose out». Meanwhile, as many employers have noticed, INPS has moved forward, updating the calculation of the contributions to be paid for domestic cleaners and carers to the new wage levels.