Contracts Framework Deal: Confapi Calls It a 'Historic Page', Conte Sees a Gap on Minimum Pay
After the framework deal on representation and bargaining, the reactions: for Confapi it 'should build a wall' against pirate contracts yet remains 'a first step', because hundreds still exist; for Conte the guarantee of a minimum wage is missing.
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After the framework agreement on representation and collective bargaining was signed, the first reactions arrived on 12 November 2026. According to one of the sources the deal "better protects citizens' purchasing power", but "effective sanctions" are now needed against those who keep undercutting. Confapi vice-president Francesco Napoli told an agency the agreement "should build a wall" against pirate contracts, while remaining "a first step", because hundreds still exist. The 5-Star Movement leader Giuseppe Conte told reporters, according to a third outlet, that "the real issue" is that "there is no guarantee of a minimum wage".
The framework agreement on representation and bargaining is there: unions and employers' associations have signed it, with the formal signing expected on 14 December. Today's story is not the signing itself but the reactions the day after, and they say two different things about the same text. One source, in an editorial by Alberto Orioli on 12 November 2026, picks qualified optimism: the deal "better protects citizens' purchasing power", but "effective sanctions are now needed for those who will continue the prohibited worsening practices", because "the real challenge will be finding new paths to grow productivity".
The employers' reading comes from Francesco Napoli, Confapi vice-president with responsibility for southern Italy, speaking on the sidelines of a forum on the future of SMEs in southern Italy at the CNEL. The agreement "should build a wall" against pirate contracts, he told the agency, but it is "a first step": hundreds of them still exist, he said, signed by organisations that represent "little more than nothing" and that offer "an undercutting contract", "with no protection for workers, no welfare, no rights, no thirteenth or fourteenth month". For him the deal is "a historic page" and "a great step", but "the start of a path": agreements "must be followed by concrete facts".
The 5-Star Movement leader, Giuseppe Conte, shifts the argument to scope. "This agreement has just been signed, we are assessing it," he told reporters, according to a third outlet. "But the real issue," he added, "is that there is no guarantee of a minimum wage". Conte rejects the objection that a statutory minimum wage strips unions of power: in the European countries that introduced one, he said, "there has never been a lowering of wages: on the contrary, they all grew", and "no union has lost bargaining power". Hence his conclusion: pair a law on union representation with one on the minimum wage.
For people who work, the question none of the three sources closes is how much of the deal will reach the payslip, and from when. One outlet speaks of purchasing power protected "better", Confapi of undercutting practices still widespread but gives no figure, and none of the sources cites a raise or an amount already set for workers covered by pirate contracts. Napoli adds an effect the deal should correct and, he says, has not corrected yet: such contracts harm "healthy companies" and deprive "many young people of a dignified salary", pushing them to leave southern Italy. The wider picture of protections also includes the school strike of November 20, which concerns another contract left standing still.
Source note: the reactions to the 12 November framework agreement are taken from Quotidiano Nazionale, ANSA and Askanews.