The increase in the wages of metalworkers is the result of innovative bargaining

The average increase on contractual minimums that metalworkers will receive in June will be higher than expectedand soon: 123.40 euros instead of the 27 euros foreseen in the February 2021 renewal estimates. This is due to an inflation safeguard clause which linked the increase in the collective agreement to the inflation figure on the consumer price indicator (HIPC) net of imported energy products in 2022.

“The increase is not the result of a new agreement or a renewal, but the fulfillment of a forecast that would not have occurred if inflation had been lower”, he explains Francesco Seghezzi, president of the Adapt foundation, an expert on the labor market and industrial relations. Initially the forecasts for the growth of the Ipca index were much lower, around one percentage point, but due to high inflation the Ipca reached 6.6 per cent, causing an increase in the contractual minimums by the same amount.

“The choice of 2021 turned out to be more forward-looking. Instead of deciding on the spot, it was decided to check the level reached by inflation ex post using the Ipca as an indicator, and when Istat’s press release arrived with the definitive figure, steps were taken to determine an increase much higher than what was established on the basis of pre-war projections that did not take into account energy shocks”, underlines Seghezzi.

The increase may seem like a sort of sliding scale, but it is not as there is no real automatic link to inflation, nor a rule that applies to allthe. Only the metalworkers’ contract introduced this safeguard clause. As stated by Robert Benagliageneral secretary of Fim-Cisl, it is a positive solution “unique in the contractual panorama of our country, the result of an innovative and mature contract”.

Also the other unions welcomed the newsbut who knows if they all agree in recognizing that what worked was the choice not to decide immediately, but only later in the face of consolidated data.