Italy - Union confederations call for reform of tax system - September 27, 2010

On 9 October, the CISL and UIL confederations will be demonstrating in Rome to call for an extensive reform of the Italian tax system. The key issues of the joint platform include: a stronger commitment and more effective controls to fight tax evasion and tax fraud; less taxation on employees’ wages and pensions, and automatic adjustments linked to the Ipca index to neutralize fiscal drag. The confederations stress that the current priority is not wage moderation, but higher pay by lowering taxation and using the productivity lever. According to the new bargaining system part of the savings obtained in each public administration by reorganizing service provision can be used for additional salaries and particularly to reward increases in productivity. Since last year, productivity payments enjoy a 10% fiscal benefit, but only in the private sector, and the CISL public sector federation wants these benefits to be extended to public workers.

English and Italian: report CISL FP International Office (Mirko Checcacci)

This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI atwww.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2009.