• The Municipality of Perugia commits to ensuring that companies wishing to obtain public contracts in the area pay a minimum wage.
• The measure passed by the Council also guarantees job stability and strengthens safety inspections.
• At the national level, the proposal for a minimum wage of 9 euros gross per hour, adjustable based on inflation, continues to face strong opposition.

There is one place in Italy where the minimum wage set at 9 euros per hour — fiercely opposed by the national government — is now a reality. That place is Perugia, which has introduced it not for all workers, as the city lacks the legislative authority to do so, but at least as a requirement for all companies wishing to obtain contracts from the Municipality.

Perugia tries out a minimum wage

Through a motion presented by councillor Lorenzo Falistocco and approved by the Municipal Executive, the administration of the Umbrian regional capital commits to introducing the minimum wage as a mandatory requirement for obtaining a contract, along with three other elements: the obligation to apply the most representative collective agreements, the introduction of the social clause (which requires the winning company to rehire workers employed under the previous contract, guaranteeing job stability and maintaining, at least in part, existing contractual conditions), and the strengthening of safety inspections for contracted workers. Commitments that in practice go even further than those contained in the minimum wage bill that opposition groups have repeatedly attempted to bring forward at the national level.

But the motion also contains other significant provisions, highlighted by Perugia's mayor, Vittoria Ferdinandi, who describes it as an act of "social justice and dignity of labour: with the new guidelines for the protection of minimum wage levels in public contracts, the Municipality of Perugia is introducing a minimum threshold of 9 euros gross per hour and new clauses safeguarding gender equality, job stability, and the inclusion of people with disabilities or in vulnerable conditions. It is a concrete step forward in building a fairer city, where no form of economic competition is built on exploitation or the devaluation of labour. A commitment to civility, fully consistent with the principles of our Constitution, which recognises in work not only a right but the foundation of human dignity and social cohesion."

At the national level, for over two years now a debate has been under way — through petition drives, citizens' legislative initiatives, and bills put forward by opposition groups — on the need for national collective agreements to include a minimum wage of exactly 9 euros gross, adjustable annually based on inflation. Yet this proposal has so far always run into the wall of the centre-right majority.