Advanced industrial relations and competitiveness

High quality employees, competitive labour costs and industrial relations with strong innovative content and collaborative bargaining attitude with Trade Unions: this is probably one of the best asset of the Italian chemical industry. With the objective of pursuing the necessary flexibility of labour in the awareness and continuous respect of the importance of human resources, Italian chemical companies may benefit of a wide flexibility as regard to: 

-      opening clauses allowing firms and Trade Unions to define at company level different and less expensive rules than the national collective bargaining;

-      daily and weekly working time which may be defined at company level respecting the average yearly working time;

-      wages through the "Participation premium" (implemented at company level as a variable part of an annual salary and linked to productivity and economic performance).

Other Italian feature affect

-      participation of employees to the costs of their lifelong learning;

-      new rules concerning apprenticeship which led to significant labour cost savings.

Finally, the strong commitment in strengthening both workers’ and firms’ interests has led to the creation of Fonchim and FASCHIM, the sectorial pension and medical funds.

Learn more on chemicals in Italy