CISL, SNALS, Gilda and ANIEF: unfounded controversies surrounding supplementary healthcare that only serve to cause confusion

A full-blown disinformation campaign is currently underway regarding the supplementary healthcare policy made available in recent days in accordance with the provisions of the supplementary agreement signed on 29 December 2025; backed by arguments that are entirely self-serving and devoid of any real basis, aimed at discrediting what certain trade unions – following the example of what has long been the case in various sectors of the public and private sectors – have secured through negotiations for school staff as well. This is the view of the trade unions CISL, SNALS, Gilda and ANIEF.

It should go without saying that a form of supplementary healthcare – which entails no cost and no obligation for workers to join – is intended to complement, and certainly not replace, the services provided by the National Health Service: to claim that introducing this scheme would amount to endorsing policies of disinvestment in public healthcare is therefore a laughable accusation, all the more so when it comes from a trade union such as the CGIL, which has recently signed similar provisions in contracts for non-state schools, and much earlier in agreements concerning sectors certainly ‘above suspicion’, such as the metalworking industry. These accusations are, moreover, at odds with the commendable leadership the CGIL has always demonstrated – to stick to our sector – in promoting and supporting the Espero supplementary pension fund, without this implying any undermining of the public pension system.

As for the accusation – the trade unions continue – that resources intended for the schools’ operating fund have been diverted to finance supplementary healthcare, it is easy to demonstrate that this is entirely without foundation. In reality, the funds earmarked for supplementary healthcare in the 2025 Budget Act were only provisionally ‘allocated’ to the operating expenditure chapter, pending the completion of the legislative process for the provisions that would have allowed them to be used for their intended purpose. Setting aside the consultation – which, whilst inevitably complex, is nonetheless possible – of the documents attached to the Budget Act and available on Parliament’s official websites, one fact demonstrates that this is an unfounded accusation: that schools have so far received, on the basis of criteria and parameters that have remained entirely unchanged since 2015, the funding to which they are entitled, without any reductions, and this will also be the case for the 2026/2027 academic year.

It borders on the ridiculous to claim that the funds spent on the health insurance scheme (65 million euros, increased to 80 million to extend the cover provided to workers on temporary contracts as well) could and should have been allocated to support pay rises (or even to make up for the 2013 pay rise!): whilst it is true that these funds were not earmarked for the collective agreement, a basic understanding of arithmetic is enough to realise that the per capita revenue derivable from the sums in question would amount to around €3 gross per month. One wonders what those who, when commenting on the pay rises in the latest National Collective Labour Agreement (signed by all the representative trade unions), described them as ‘little more than a pittance’ actually think about this.

We therefore leave it to those who are promoting such arguments to bear the responsibility for these entirely specious and manipulative controversies, the practical effect of which is merely to fuel confusion and disorientation amongst those who must decide, at this time, whether to make use of an important means of protection. We can take satisfaction in the fact that, for the first time, we have secured, through a contractual agreement, that staff in state schools can now also benefit from these opportunities.