ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

The Italian trade union federation Fisascat-CISL held its executive board meeting in the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the European Parliament respectively last month.

The goal of the meetings was to present a declaration of intent to be shared with the sector's social partners: UNI Europa, UNI Property Services, and the employers association EFCI to form part of their policy platform going into the revision of the EU Directives on Public Procurement.

The newly elected general secretary of CISL Daniela Fumarola participated in the meeting with European trade union partners and employer representatives Oliver Roethig, regional secretary UNI Europa, Mark Bergfeld, director property services UNI Europa and Alberto De Rosa, president EFCI, as well as members of the European Parliament, vice president Pina Picierno MEP and the Pasquale Tridico MEP.

The statement of intent highlights the need to strengthen social dialogue between European social partners and to intervene in the reform of Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement to counter contractual, wage, and social dumping, and to professionalise the workforce in the cleaning sector. In Italy alone more than 600, 000 workers, predominantly women, part-time and migrant workers, are employed in the sector.

In the discussions, advanced or preliminary collective bargaining was posited as the solution to address workers' challenges on public contracts. This is understood as a preventive agreement between the client, employer associations, and representative trade union organizations, which enshrines wage regularity, stable and quality employment, social contributions, and advances health and safety conditions.

"Through early bargaining," stated Vincenzo Dell'Orefice, deputy general secretary of the CISL federation, "Fisascat Cisl intends to protect the quality of work in the multiservices sector, combating contractual, wage, and social dumping, and encouraging companies to compete on service quality rather than merely cost containment."

"This tool," he added, "can promote the autonomy of collective bargaining in crafting tailored solutions, contributing to strengthening trade union relationships and reducing litigation, improving the corporate climate and increasing productivity, while enhancing company reputations and their ability to attract talent. Our hope is that there can be broad convergences on the document of intentions to create a European sectoral social dialogue in the multiservices field."

For the CISL federation, "a general reflection on the system of public procurement and subcontracting is needed. We need certain and demanding rules on the public procurement system, which can also play a leading role in regulating concessions in the private system." The Fisascat Cisl proposal has received endorsements from speakers at the assembly.

At the EESC, Oliver Roethig, president of UNI Europa, highlighted that "it is necessary to join forces with employers to counter the lowest bid prevalent in the public procurement system in Europe, which accounts for 14 per cent of GDP and 14 per cent of the total workforce. We must strengthen trade union power and focus on enhancing collective bargaining.

"Only through collective bargaining," he concluded, "is it possible to improve the public procurement system and the working conditions of millions of employees."

For Alberto De Rosa, president of EFCI, European Cleaning and Facility Services Industry: "it is the right time to make the recent directive on public procurement as accessible as possible. The goal is, through early bargaining, to involve and raise awareness among clients. The interest of the social partners should be to converge towards positions capable of mitigating differences to avoid social dumping.

"We need to aim for price revision processes, the definition of certain rules, and bureaucratic simplification, to increase the efficiency and competitiveness of companies and ensure adequately paid work."

Mark Bergfeld, director of UNI Property Services, the European trade union for cleaning and security services stated: "It is necessary to counter the criterion of the lowest bid used in more than half of public procurements. The idea of early bargaining is positive; we will work among Social Partners on the Fisascat Cisl proposal to reach a joint statement on the revision of the public procurement directives in the coming weeks."