Fairer wages, but how? The challenge of Bill 957

Article by Sonia Palmeri

At Tuesday's session 23 September 2025, The Senate, with 78 votes in favour and 52 against, definitively approved the Delegated Bill No. 957 concerning “Delegations to the Government on workers' pay and collective bargaining, as well as control and information procedures “. Presented as Italy's answer to the problem of low wages (remember the EU Directive 2022/2041on the adequate minimum wage that asks each country to guarantee wages “fair and equitable”) does not introduce a legal minimum wage, but entrusts the government with the task of strengthening collective bargaining, making national contracts the minimum reference for all workers. This approach is consistent with the Italian tradition, which has always entrusted trade unions and social partners with the role of labour regulators. Widening the view, today as many as 22 out of 27 Member States have a minimum wage set by law, updated periodically, while Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Italy adopt minimum wages set by collective bargaining.

But back to delegation and its four pillars:

1. Fair and equitable wages: ensure that wages respect the constitutional principle of proportionality and sufficiency (Art. 36).
2. Tackling underpaid work: protecting the most vulnerable workers and at-risk groups.
3. Contract renewal: stimulate national and decentralised collective bargaining.
4. Stop contract dumping: avoid unfair competition based on savings at the expense of rights and wages.

They must descend from it:

CCNL as minimum referenceThe government should identify the most widely applied national collective agreements and ensure that their minimum wages also apply to those not covered by collective bargaining.

Transparencyobligation to indicate the code of the CCNL applied in Uniemens flows, in compulsory communications and, probably, in pay slips.

Checks and inspectionsStrengthening of surveillance tools and six-monthly reporting on the fight against undeclared work, contractual dumping and irregular procurement.

Promotion of decentralised bargainingfavouring the progressive development of second-level bargaining for adaptive purposes, also to meet the diversified needs arising from the increase in the cost of living and related to the difference in this cost on a territorial basis.

Incentives for contract renewalsincluding the possible recognition of incentives to workers to balance and/or compensate for the reduction in their purchasing power.

MinLav's intervention for non-renewalFor each contract that has expired and has not been renewed within the timeframe set by the social partners or in any case within an appropriate timeframe, as well as for sectors not covered by collective bargaining, the direct intervention of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy is allowed, with the adoption of the necessary measures.

Participationby regulating models of worker participation in the management and profits of the enterprise, based on the valorisation of the common interest of workers and the entrepreneur in the prosperity of the enterprise.

Opposition criticism

The opposition accused the government of not wanting to tackle the legal minimum wage, arguing that without an hourly value fixed by law, the risk is that the working poor will remain poor. For its part, the majority defends the choice: “The statutory minimum wage risks weakening collective bargaining,” the rapporteurs argue, 'while this delegation strengthens the role of trade unions and social partners.

A test case for the government

The government will have six months from the entry into force of the law to issue the implementing legislative decrees. The challenge will be to transform the principles of the enabling act into concrete regulations, capable of guaranteeing decent wages without compromising the competitiveness of the production system.

But the question remains: will it be enough?

The country is experiencing a season of stagnant wages, high inflation and poor work that no longer affects only young people, but extends to entire production sectors. The idea of linking the minimum wage to the prevailing collective bargaining agreements has a logic: to prevent contractual dumping, to guarantee a curb against the race to the bottom, to value the most representative contracts. Everything will depend on the government's ability to issue the implementing decrees quickly, on controls on implementation, and on the strength of the unions to renew contracts that have expired for years. The writer believes that DDL 957 does not close the debate on the minimum wage: it moves it forward. It will be the coming months, with the decrees and negotiations between companies and trade unions, that will tell us whether this reform will be a turning point or just one more chapter in Italy's long history of announced and never fully realised reforms.

Image: Sonia Palmeri (@ courtesy of)