Union-employer agreement on wages and contracts: what the deal provides

The agreement between unions and employers was signed at dawn on Thursday, 12 November, by Cgil, Cisl and Uil together with 13 employer associations, including Confindustria and Confcommercio. It centres on wages, the recovery of purchasing power, and health and safety at work.¹ The negotiations lasted about 18 hours and ended at ten to six in the morning. The manifesto refers to a draft agreement.¹²

Who signed and what it establishes

The text is an interconfederal agreement, meaning a framework accord between the workers’ confederations and the employers’ confederations. It updates the rules on wages, contracts, participation and representation.¹ The other eleven employer associations at the table are Confservizi, Confetra, Agci, Legacoop, Confcooperative, Claai, Casartigiani, Cna, Confartigianato, Confapi and Confesercenti.¹ The agreement defines the “fair wage” that workers should receive through contracts. It also sets out which unions and business associations are the most representative, and outlines the “contractual perimeters”, meaning the boundaries between one contract and another.¹

How contract renewals and inflation recovery change

For Cisl general secretary Daniela Fumarola, collective contracts, meaning national agreements that set pay and conditions for entire sectors, will be renewed when they expire. The platforms with the unions’ demands will be presented six months earlier, employers will respond within one month, and negotiations will start immediately.³¹ On inflation recovery, meaning the rise in prices that erodes the value of wages, Fumarola explains that when price increases exceed forecasts, the gap is offset through checks at regular intervals, and the recovery is permanently added to pay packets.¹ If a contract renewal is delayed, a mandatory safeguard linked to inflation recovery is triggered. Fumarola specifies that “it is not indexation, it is bargaining” and that delaying will no longer benefit anyone.¹

The signatories’ words

Fumarola described the agreement as “an act of responsibility towards the country” and “a founding accord, in the tradition of the great interconfederal agreements”. She added that the text was written by unions and employers independently, at the end of a prolonged and at times tough negotiation.¹

This article was written by artificial intelligence from the sources cited, without human review. Automatic newsroom by Redazia.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Salari e contratti, siglato l’accordo tra i sindacati e imprese, agi.it, 2026-11-12 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

2. Rappresentanza, contratti e salari: firmata l’intesa tra imprese e Cgil, Cisl, Uil, il manifesto, 2026-11-12 ↩

3. Lavoro, c’è l’accordo sindacati-imprese. Fumarola: “Rinnovo contratti a scadenza e recupero inflazione”, la Repubblica · Economia, 2026-11-12 ↩