2013-10-30

The negotiations for the renewal of the textiles contract between the Italian labor unions and the Sistema Moda Italia (SMI), Italy’s fashion system, has yet once again been stalled as the workers’ unions have not accepted the proposals made by SMI.

 

The national labor contract for textiles and clothing affects nearly 500,000 people who are employed in the sector, and is the most important contract of the Italian manufacturing industry.

 

Labor unions have not reached any decision regarding the proposals made by SMI for the wages and working hours of the laborers, at a recent meeting held in the city of Milan.

 

Carlo Mascellani, deputy director general of SMI, said there seems to be some kind of difference between the labor unions which is contrary to what the situation was during the previous meeting.

 

However, despite such a difficult situation, the SMI has identified a way to establish a new contract between the parties to respond to the needs of competitiveness in the sector, he added.

 

The SMI had presented a package of proposals in March 2012 for a negotiation between the unions and the employers. The response of the unions has been until now only for the economic part of the proposal, and they have proposed a unified scheme for the renewal of the contract.

 

According to Mr. Mascellani, in recent months the labor unions have been very uncooperative regarding the contract and there have been divisions in approach between the unions to deal decisively about the schemes proposed by Italian firms in their specific content. 

 

In addition to updating the contract with respect to the changes made in the field of the labor market (training, wages etc.), a special framework was also proposed to be devised for those firms involved in distribution, and the SMI had proposed to take action on the issues to make sure that companies operating in the textiles and clothing sector carry out the activities in timely manner regulated by the national contract, he added. 

Source:Fibre2fashion