Pirate contracts, dumping alarm triggered
Those who apply them risk penalties of up to EUR 40,000 per year. Roscioli: 'Think about litigation and the loss of any benefits deriving from the various forms of facilitation'
The report 'Contractual Dumping in the Tourism Sector: What Risks for Businesses' was presented, produced by Federalberghi, the organisation representing Italian tourism accommodation businesses, in collaboration with the National Bilateral Agency for the Tourism Sector and Adapt, the Association for Labour Law Studies founded by Professor Marco Biagi. The report, based on data from the National Archive of Contracts and Collective Labour Agreements of the Cnel and on an in-depth analysis of current legislation and case law, highlights the risks connected to the use of collective labour agreements stipulated by non-representative subjects such as, for example, phantom employer and trade union associations, acronyms lacking legitimacy and representativeness.
"The study clarifies once and for all the risks that businesses run by relying on subjects without any legitimacy and representativeness and exposing themselves to very serious economic, regulatory and image repercussions," explains Giuseppe Roscioli, Deputy Vice President of Federalberghi and Chairman of the organisation's Trade Union Commission. "In addition to the higher cost due to the recovery of unpaid contributions, think of the litigation and the loss of any benefits deriving from the various forms of facilitation. A nightmare scenario that justifies the utmost prudence'.
The risks are represented by the higher costs quantifiable in several tens of thousands of euros per year, both in terms of recovering contributions due from social security bodies and in the form of recovering salary credits from the workers concerned. In fact, the living cost for the 'average' hotel enterprise with 14 employees that is challenged with the application of a 'pirate contract' can easily exceed 40 thousand euros per year, to which must be added the repercussions in terms of the impossibility of resorting to contractual institutions such as fixed-term contracts, apprenticeships, flexible working hours, and much more that the legislator reserves for the so-called leader contracts, such as the CCNL Tourism signed by Federalberghi, Faita, and the trade union counterparts FILCAMS CGIL, FISASCAT CISL, and UILTuCS, applied by more than 80% of the companies and employees in the sector.
