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THE ITALIAN LABOR AND CITIZENSHIP REFERENDA JUNE 8–9  
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Salvo Leonardi and Lepoldo Tartaglia
June 13, 2025
The Stansbury Forum
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_ Despite the defeat of pro-worker referenda, bringing workers’
rights and dignity back to the top of the list in the public
discourse, in a time saddened by wars and epochal challenges, can be
considered a positive. _

, A vote "Yes" leaflet" in Padua, northern Italy.

 

A NOTE FROM PETER OLNEY, CO-EDITOR OF THE STANSBURY FORUM
On Sunday June 8 and Monday June 9 Italians went to the polls
nationally to vote on 5 Referendum propositions placed on the ballot
by the largest Italian labor federation, the Confederazione Generale
Italiana dei Lavoratori (CGIL) and immigrant and citizenship advocacy
groups. Four of the referenda concerned labor employment rights and
the fifth was an important initiative to speed up the timeline for
obtaining Italian citizenship. Two Italian labor leaders, Salvatore
Leonardi and Leopoldo Tartaglia have written a very comprehensive
summation of the referenda and the disappointing election result for
The Stansbury Forum.

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Creative commons

June 10th 2025

A RESOUNDING, BITTER DEFEAT

It’s not easy to explain what happened in Italy on June 8–9, when
Italians went to the polls to vote on five referendums, four of which
were promoted by the largest trade union confederation, the
Confederazione Generale Italiana dei Lavoratori (CGIL). Three would
have abrogated previous statutes that were conceived to relax the
rules for firing and hiring in favor of the employers.  One dealt
with subcontracting and social responsibility in the case of accidents
at work. The fifth would have reduced from ten to five, the years for
resident and regular migrants to obtain full political citizenship. 

Italian law sets a 50%+ threshold (_quorum_) of eligible voters to
consider a consultation valid. The proponents and supporters knew that
this would be an uphill battle. Recent precedents were not at all
encouraging. We live in times when the average turnout at elections
has almost everywhere been getting lower, year after year. Aware of
that, all the right-wing Italian parties, which have since 2022 ruled
the country, called their voters and sympathizers to boycott the
consultation. And the support from centre-left parties was not enough
to overcome the combination of natural and overt political abstention.
At the end of the day, on June 9th, only 30% of those having the right
to vote had gone to the urns (around 14 million voters, out of a total
number of 46 million eligible electors), with the result that the
whole campaign failed. 

Despite the CGIL’s mobilizations and organizational effort,
witnessed by a massive and generous return to militant action all over
the country, from members and activists, the target at the end was
largely missed. No quorum, no victory!! It was clearly a lost battle.
The substantial silence from the mainstream broadcast and media,
during the campaign, had for certain contributed to such a
demoralizing result, but it alone cannot serve as a satisfactory
explanation. There is in fact a wider problem with the general
functioning of our democracy, like other democracies too, with
worrying widespread forms of apathy and mass disaffection for whatever
concerns are in the political sphere. This occurs even when key social
rights are questioned or, as in this case, potentially reestablished
to the benefit of wide sectors of the society, who have been long
penalized by years of neoliberal and anti-working class policies.  
 

It’s small consolation, but it should be remembered anyway, that the
14 million voters is a much larger number than the membership of 5
million in the CGIL. And it is more votes than what the Meloni
right-wing coalition obtained in the last political elections (12,5
million) It was more than what all the centre-left parties, lined up
in support of the five referendums, got one year ago, at the European
elections (11 million). But one should not make too much of
comparisons and draw incorrect conclusions. 
[//2933EE6E-A509-4353-B616-EB4EE83B0F06#_ftn1]

THE PATH TO THE REFERENDUMS AND THEIR SUBSTANCE

In order to qualify a referendum, Italian law can only be abrogative
– partial or total – of norms –existing legislation. Promoters
have to collect at least 500.000 officially certified signatures, now
facilitated by the possibility of electronic signing. CGIL went far
beyond that threshold, getting something like 1.3 million signatures
for each of the four questions and requests, whereas the promoters of
the citizenship’s referendum – a coalition of civil society
organizations – were able to quickly collect 630.000 signatures,
thanks to the very new opportunities enabled by electronic democracy.

Once delivered, the abrogative claims must be validated by the Italian
Supreme Court, which is required to check whether the questions are
sufficiently coherent and legally compatible in their formulation.
Originally, the consultation should have also included the request to
abrogate the so-called “regional differentiated autonomy”, a law
that gave to the Regions many powers and responsibilities previously
under the purview of the central State. For technical reasons, which
would take too long to describe, this additional request was rejected
by the Constitutional Court. This was a big detriment to all the other
five questions, since this last issue is extremely sensitive in large
parts of the Country, and especially where it is considered
detrimental, as in the less economically developed regions of the
South. Cut off from it, the remaining five issues had lost the main
potential draw, in terms of number of voters. 

What were these five referenda about, exactly? With regard to the four
concerning firing and hiring at work, the intention of the promoters
(CGIL) was to drastically reduce precarity, making dismissals more
costly than they’ve become after the reforms of 10 years ago, with
the return to some old limitations in the use and abuse of the fixed
term contracts, as they are not now required to be somehow justified,
for the first year, by some technical or organizational need from
employers. Furthermore, in order to strengthen the social
responsibility and due diligence of all companies, when outsourcing
and subcontracting parts of their production cycle, they’d be called
on to support extra costs when a worker suffers from an accident at
work, in addition to what mandatory coverage exists from the National
Institute of Insurance against the Accidents at Work (INAIL). 

Surprisingly enough, most of these existing measures, aimed at
relaxing the old labor protections and at increasing the work
flexibility, were introduced by centre-left Governments, in times when
they were inspired by a neoliberal ideology and leadership of the
pivotal Democratic Party (PD). Matteo Renzi, Premier at the time
(2014-15), and his encompassing labor reform (known as the “Jobs
Act”), were the main target of the referendum campaign. Importantly,
with the solid support of the new leadership of the PD, after its
leftward turn, under the new secretary, Elly Schlein.        

MORE IN DETAIL

1.   The first referendum aimed to abolish the legislative decree
derived from the Jobs Act (2015), where it replaced the workers’
right to be reintegrated in his job and workplace, in a case where a
judge rules that the worker’s dismissal is not based on performance
or economic downturn and reorganization This right was guaranteed by
the old, famous Article 18 of the Workers’ Statute of 1970, amended
in 2012 and then completely abrogated in 2015. Thereafter, for all the
employees hired since then, the protection will only consist in
getting a monetary compensation, between a minimum of 6 and a maximum
of 36 months salary [//D98F599A-05BA-4325-B540-E94E228439CB#_ftn1],
considering  seniority, with the only exclusion of discriminatory
dismissals, for de facto gender, racial, religious, political, etc.
reasons, where the right to be reintegrated remains in force. Voting
“yes” aimed to reinsert the right to rehire, as the normal remedy
in case of unfair dismissal, with the monetary compensation as the
exception. 

2.   The second question was about the unfair dismissals in small
enterprises with less than 16 employees, where the law – considering
the close personal implications in the work relationships and the
minor financial capacities of the entrepreneurs – has never provided
for the reintegration but only for some monetary compensation, between
2 and 6 monthly salaries. Voting “yes” aimed to give the judge the
possibility to mandate compensation in excess of 6 months, in
consideration of various circumstances, such as the worker’s family
composition or the firm’s ability to pay. In the past, the small
size of the firm was assumed as an undeniable feature of the limited
financial capacity of the business. This is not always the case any
longer, as in an era of digital and smart start-ups of a new
generation, it’s perfectly possible to formally hire a small number
of employees, outsource a lot of freelancers and to produce
stratospheric turnover. See the story of the Silicon Valley economy,
as an example in this regard.  

3.   The third referendum aimed to limit the proliferation of the
fixed-term contracts, abolishing the laws that, from 2014 onwards,
allowed the employer to use this contract for the first 12 months,
without giving any technical or organizational justification. For the
CGIL, fix-term contracts are today a true plague of the labor market
and employment relationships. Most of them have an extremely short
duration, especially in the tertiary, service and low pay sectors,
with the result of depriving the workers of any possibility to manage
their life and making them too vulnerable to get organized or ask for
the respect of their rights. Voting “yes” aimed to reintroduce a
cause, technical or organizational, since the beginning, when hiring
with a fix-term contract. In other words, the objective was to make
open-ended, stable contracts, the normal and predominant form of
employment.  

4.   The fourth question asked to eliminate the norms that leave out
the culpability by the buyer and contractor for a labor accident
occurring in subcontractor facilities. Italy is a country with a very
large number of accidents at work, with a tragic daily national
average of three fatal accidents. The majority of these fatal
accidents occur in small enterprises, usually part of a chain of
subcontractors. 

5.   Not less important was the fifth referendum, aiming to give
migrants the right to attain Italian citizenship after five, years as
in most of the comparable European countries, instead of the ten years
required today. This is a very sensitive issue, affecting something
like 2.5 million foreigners regularly living in Italy with their
children, attending school, sport activities and everything but
excluded from being considered “Italians”. 

In the first four questions the number of  “yes” was massively
prevailing over the “no”, with majorities ranging between 87 and
89 per cent. Of course, don’t forget that most of those against
opted for boycotting the consultation, by not going to vote.
Remarkably, this was not the case for the fifth question, about
migrants and citizenship, where the “No” reached 34.5%.This is a
very disappointing result, which leads to some critical and
preoccupying reflection about the incidence of xenophobia, also within
wide segments of the working class, including the unionized blue
collar and centre-left electorate. It’s a worldwide and well-know
trend; certainly in the US, in times of mounting Trumpism, but not
only there. 

EXULTATION VS. DEJECTION

It’s too early to fully understand and evaluate the consequences of
this heavy defeat. Obviously, the right wing Government, parties and
media have been exulting, pretending to deduce that “the Italians”
approve their politics, against the “ideological” CGIL positions,
ignored or rejected by a large majority of the electorate. They flaunt
some good employment data, ignoring the true quality of many jobs,
terribly affected by precarity and very low wages. Some
“reformist” commentators, from neoliberal positions and inspirers
or makers of the under scrutiny reforms of 10-15 years ago, such as
the former Premier Renzi in person, contested the contents of the
referenda, accused it of being outdated and anachronistic, since the
true problem today are very low wages, and not job stability. Concern
for which, of course, is of great importance to the CGIL too, which is
engaged on that topic in collective bargaining. But the CGIL is also
aware that workers precarity and worker blackmail are some of the main
reasons for such a long-lasting wage stagnation. 

Even the referendum instrument itself as it is conceived today is now
under question, in the days following the vote Utilized more than in
other comparable country in Europe, Italian referenda have always
failed to reach the quorum since 1999 – with just one single
exception in 2011 (on the water as a public good) – with a very low
average participation (below 30%) of those having the right to vote.
The threshold of 500.000 signatures, set in a time when the population
was of 30 million, seems to be too low and easily reachable,
especially now that electronic signatures are allowed, and
disproportionate to the millions of votes required to be valid. One of
the discussed solutions could be to double the number of signatures
and to lower the quorum (40%+1) for the result to be valid.     

The mood in the world of the promoters, the day after, is
understandably of delusion and dejection. The effort of the big
organizational machine had been huge and thus the high hopes, at the
eve of the vote. Nevertheless, the willingness to keep on fighting is
for certain not dead and buried, as the referenda issues can be
considered as a step, though missed, in the everyday struggle to
achieving better jobs and workers’ rights. The outcome of this
battle has been undoubtedly negative, but its objectives are not
deleted from our agenda. We can and must in fact capitalize on some of
the good things we achieved with this campaign. The reputation, for
instance, of the CGIL and its reliability in representing and
advocating the weaker and most vulnerable sectors of our society has
been enhanced. To bring workers’ rights and dignity back again to
the top of the list in the public discourse, in a time saddened by
wars and epochal challenges, can be also considered a positive. The
energy and the enthusiasm was profuse from a new generation of
militants and activists who campaigned, street-by-street,
house-by-house. The practice of a new model of social movement
unionism, open and in alliance or in coalition with other associations
of civil society, students and NGOs, as for instance in the
intersectional battle for justice on the side of the migrants or young
precarious worker women. It was no small feat to have stimulated and
pushed the centre-left parties to gather and share a common political
campaign – with finally the workers’ rights and conditions as a
key identitarian issue – can be listed on the column of the partial
success of this story.     

Lost is the immediate battle for changing bad laws, what remains is to
use the traditional tools and battlefields in the field of industrial
relations. With collective bargaining at all levels, as the key arena
for union action and the members’ militancy. We don’t give
up. _La lotta continua_ 

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[//2933EE6E-A509-4353-B616-EB4EE83B0F06#_ftnref1] The 14 million
voters refers to the total turnout for the vote, not the number of
voters that supported the abrogative referenda which of course will be
less because within that total turnout are voters who voted “no”
on some or all of the   questions.

[//D98F599A-05BA-4325-B540-E94E228439CB#_ftn1] The original formula
of the 2015 reform was a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 24,but a new
Centre-left government increased the formula to its present status in
2018.

…

 

_Salvo Leonardi: Senior Researcher in industrial relations at the Di
Vittorio Foundation, the National institute of historical, economic
and social research of the Italian General Confederation of Labor
(CGIL: Institute for economic, social and historic research and trade
union education and training ), the largest and left wing trade union
confederation. He attended the Chicago’s conference and took part as
speaker in one of its international workshop about solidarity across
the world. _

_Lepoldo Tartaglia: Leopoldo Tartaglia is a retired member of the
National General Assembly of the SPI (National Federation of
Pensioners) CGIL He worked for 20 years in the CGIL International
Department and after that in the SPI CGIL International Department._

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