«Welfare, dogs and cats» | poster

For the workers of Gd of Bologna (1817 employees, a company in the engineering sector that is part of the Coesia group and specializes in machinery for the production of packaging) the new collective agreement provides for the right to an additional 12 hours of vacation per year. Extended family care. But it is really inflated: to include also the pets that live in the house. A novelty in the field of luxury that, albeit small, can open up new spaces. The pet’s entry into the company’s contract for metalworkers for gd, approved by referendum and effective from october, was remarkable. In the care of Gd, Animal Welfare also fronts the Bologna page of a national newspaper. Ilaria Innocente, Institutional Relations Area of ​​the Love Historical Society for Neighborhood Rights, congratulates: “This selection is really positive and could be replicated in further negotiations. For years, Lav has supported a partner on a technical-legal level to obtain this recognition.” A precedent likely to be cited by those who, with the necessary medical and health certification, find themselves in the same situation of necessity. “However, the context must be explained,” says Simon Selmi, the new secretary of Fiom-Cgil of Bologna. The Allied platform was the basis for the negotiations to discuss the new contract.

Are metalworkers opening a new frontier of commitment and reaching out for animal rights?

We are a union: our role was and still is to expand workers’ rights. In the negotiations in Gd we made the issue of social rights a fixed point. Pet grooming is therefore the final stage of the process which now includes the worker’s entitlement to care for the extended family. The right of the worker from our point of view; Not a family member or pet, I want to make that clear. In the current situation that is as problematic as the one we are going through at the national level, we are trying to avoid setbacks and are already contributing to building a series of agreements that also expand social rights and welfare. Logic that started some time ago in Fiom of Bologna in particular. We develop a 360-degree negotiation. From the discussion regarding working hours and the short week (a complex issue in sectors of industrial production; therefore we focus on leading firms), to instability, from the issue of wages to social rights. Among these are the extended family sponsorship permits.

What does the new right to 12 hours leave consist of and how does it work in practice, of which 4 are for the care of pets – dogs, cats, fish, birds, etc.?

In addition to the number of hours of paid vacation, workers are given 12 hours per year to care for extended family. Let’s say it’s a step-by-step process: extended family care rights are introduced, a concept that goes beyond the classic first degree concept. Finally, pets are also included in this concept. The requirement of cohabitation or co-dwelling is necessary, as is it for humans (therefore non-cohabiting persons cannot be dealt with); As for animals, documents proving their ownership are excluded from this. In concrete terms, he will then be asked to make an appointment, in the case of pets, to visit the vet or clinic. And, of course, this applies to any kind of animal that is regularly found in homes. It is not our duty to deal with their various situations.

Is the issue of caring for pets in the context of the extended family new to the employment contract?

This is new for Gd, who had provided paid leave for relatives only in the classical sense. Here we have provided extended human family and pets care in one fell swoop. But in fact, Bologna is quite a leading area in the field of social rights for workers and additional permits for extended families have already been introduced in many companies. The animal novelty has opened up to Lamborghini, a fact in which the already permitted right in 2019 to take care of the family in the broadest sense was extended to pets.

How do employers react to this change?

In our region, bargaining on social issues is a standard practice. This kind of innovation is a kind of… imitation. Then, as with every invasion, you go in stages.

Recognition of the unconventional wealth of feelings, within the framework of workers’ social rights, is a new path for the union and Bologna leads the way. But what about the difficult commitment that was instead part of your union tradition, the tradition of transforming war production?

It is certainly there for everyone to see that the production, sale and export of arms in emergency is really booming. The logic to be made is much broader, and here I limit myself to saying that the field in which I work in the engineering sector is not suitable for the production of weapons (automobiles, packaging machinery and general mechanics prevail).