Consider Venice. Union leaders say the chains — which include such giants as Hilton Worldwide Brands and Star Hotels and have significant influence over two of the Veneto region’s most powerful employers’ federations — have refused their demands for higher wages since 2018, regularly derailing talks at the 11th hour to push for concessions that would weaken workers’ rights.
“The employers requested a percentage increase in fixed-term contracts, more flexibility in working hours … and the introduction of ‘availability’ clauses, where the employee remains at the company’s disposal 24 hours a day [and] the company can call him back to work at very short notice by paying a small financial compensation,” said Boscaro, one of the lead negotiators on the union side. “So we refused.”
With the most recent union proposal in July— which included inflation-adjusted pay rises and more rights for new parents — the big chains simply walked away, Boscaro added. Hence the desperate strike, which was timed to generate maximum inconvenience at the Venice International Film Festival.
“It’s not as if the workers have many other weapons,” said Cecilia de Pantz, general secretary of the CGIL’s Venetian branch.
None of the big chains or employers federations was willing to comment, though Confindustria’s Veneto branch sent a statement to POLITICO arguing that it was the unions, not the employers, that stonewalled during the July meeting, pointing to other recent negotiations that did result in contract renewal. De Pantz, on the other hand, said that meeting produced a number of proposals and counter-proposals that were rejected by both sides.
While workers across Italy remain lumped with low wages, the cause of the inverted dynamic in Venice is largely sector-specific. Tourism work is by nature seasonal and often precarious, giving workers less bargaining power than those, say, on an assembly line that runs constantly throughout the year. The mass closures during Covid, said Boscaro, reduced workers’ options further while accustoming them to the lower wages imposed during furlough.
Tourism is also a sector where it is relatively easy to substitute cheap labor from abroad, due to the lack of formal qualifications required in many areas. Exacerbated by Italy’s demographic decline and the shortage of Italians willing to put up with bad pay, that has led to steadily worsening conditions, Boscaro said. As a result, while the cost of staying in a five-star hotel in its historic center can now run into the thousands of euros, the workers servicing those hotels struggle near the poverty line. For them, official data suggesting that things can only get better offers nothing but cold comfort.
