Police contract, Silf denounces: 'Only EUR 7.60 gross per year is an insult, useless negotiations'

"Only EUR 7.60 gross per year more per financier and no real opening on economic and regulatory protections. Under these conditions it is completely useless to negotiate or present new proposals'. The denunciation comes from Francesco Zavattolo, secretary general of the Silf (Italian Union of Financial Workers), in view of the meeting with the government scheduled for Wednesday.

"The new government counter-proposal for the 2022-24 contract of the Police Forces translates into a handout," Zavattolo continues, "less than a coffee a month, obtained, moreover, with an accounting sleight of hand: a mere shift of resources from the accessory salary to the fixed one, based on the distribution of 91% on the fixed part and 9% on the accessory. An increase of just two euros per month compared to the previous offer, which, drained from the workers' pay envelope itself, effectively closes any margin for negotiation'.

According to Silf, the political and economic paradox is even more evident when compared with the executive's recent moves towards the private sector. "With the 'Safe Wage' decree," the secretary continues, "the government has shown that when there is political will money can be found, and quickly too, allocating as much as 900 million euros in just twenty-four hours. On the contrary, for those who guarantee the country's security, the cash box is suddenly empty. The men and women in uniform are denied decent resources, forcing them to suffer a pitiless institutional double burden. The fiamme gialle are in the front line in the fight against tax evasion, a black hole that in Italy exceeds 90 billion euro a year: it is precisely the financiers who recover the resources that the State redistributes, only to be told that there are no funds for their contract'.

The union recalls that it presented concrete proposals to the table, many of them at zero cost, but received a rubber wall on all fronts. "On the pension plan,' Zavattolo explains, 'we asked for real guarantees on supplementary pensions, which the government had already promised in words. On the ancillary salary front, we had proposed solutions to revalue allowances that had been stagnant for decades, hypothesising a reduction in the number of services to compensate costs without burdening the public coffers. Finally, we demanded regulatory changes to Article 941-quindecies of Presidential Decree 90/2010, indispensable to allow military unions to exercise real and free protection of personnel. The response of the executive was a total closure'.

'Our fear,' the Silf secretary concludes, 'is that the government is aiming to liquidate the file with minimal effort, offering the 91/9 split and some micro-regulatory adjustments on leave, secondments, and duration of assignments. It is a package that appears to be designed more to flatter union leaders than to respond to the real needs of the grassroots'.