The right salary we have to do? It was presented within the May Day decree and, on the afternoon of May 18, the deadline for presenting the amendments expired. Some time will still pass before we have, or do not have, the “right salary”, because the path of the text is long, but the first stage has ended. 550 amendments were tabled, half of which belonged to the opposition.
The amendment by Claudio Durigon, former Ugl trade unionist and current undersecretary of Labor, was discussed, who presented a proposal to introduce the retroactivity of increases in contract renewals that occurred late, a measure foreseen in the draft and then eliminated at the last moment.
Rain of amendments on the May Day decree
On May 18, 2026, the phase of sending the amendments for the May Day decree ended. On Wednesday 20 May the inadmissible amendments will be communicated and from Thursday the appeals will be announced. Starting next week we will focus on examining those who survived the selection in committee and voting will begin.
We are still talking about around 550 amendments, half of which are from the opposition: 112 from the Democratic Party, 109 from the 5 Star Movement. A unitary amendment, signed by PD, Avs, Azione and Italia Viva, once again proposes the minimum wage at 9 euros an hour.
The difference between minimum wage and fair wage was discussed at length in the first days of May.
The retroactivity proposal
An amendment which is being discussed outside the committee rooms is the one presented by the Undersecretary of Labor Claudio Durigon. This presented a text that introduces the retroactivity of increases in contract renewals that occurred late.
It is not a new text, it was already present in the draft of the May Day decree, but it was eliminated at the last minute. Now Durigon proposes it again and assures:
I don’t think there are problems with Minister Calderone, with the unions and with the employers.
Yet retroactivity was eliminated from the final text due to the high cost that companies would have had to pay, and even today there is no unanimity among the unions. For example, Uil is in favor, while CGIL says it is sceptical.
Arrears and advance on inflation
Claudio Durigon insists that if they said no to the minimum wage, they now have to support “workers’ wages”. This would go through two themes: arrears and the advance on inflation.
The heart of the amendment is in the first paragraph, namely the proposal for retroactivity. It reads:
The increases in the economic benefits provided for by the renewals of the national collective labor agreements take effect from the expiry date of the previous national collective labor agreement.
It means that if a contract expires today and is renewed two years late, the increases should not start from 2028, but from the expiry of the old contract in 2026. In practice, delaying the renewal would have economic consequences and this could push companies to speed up the process and not leave workers in uncertainty for months or years.
The second approach is the arrears mechanism. The text approved by the Council of Ministers provides that, in the event of non-renewal, wages will be adjusted as a flat-rate advance to the change in the index used in the contracts to measure the increase in prices. The quota is equal to 30%, but Durigon proposes to raise it to 50%.
It means that if the contract is not renewed, workers are paid the advance linked to inflation while waiting for the new agreement. Also in this case, the objective seems to be to push the parties towards a quicker renewal.
