Minimum wage? It can be done, and it already exists in some regions: the Constitutional Court gives the green light to Puglia on public procurement
It can be done. The minimum wage of 9 euros gross per hour – which the national government refuses to consider – can be introduced in Italy in small steps, at a regional level as Puglia or Toscana have done, or even at a municipal level as cities such as Genova, Torino or Perugia have done. The Constitutional Court has in fact, just days ago, declared inadmissible the questions of constitutional legitimacy raised by the President of the Council of Ministers, Giorgia Meloni, against the 2024 law of the Regione Puglia, which provided for the setting of a minimum wage threshold – precisely 9 euros per hour – as a criterion for selecting the collective agreement that the Region and its instrumental bodies must indicate in tender documents relating to public procurement procedures put out to tender at a regional level: in plain terms, in order to have any hope of winning a public contract.
According to the government, the provisions of the Puglia law would infringe the autonomy of collective bargaining in setting wages, as well as the rules that assign the State exclusive competence over determining the essential levels of benefits. But according to the Constitutional Court, a minimum wage set at local level does not introduce a generalised obligation for a minimum wage across all private subordinate employment contracts concluded within the regional territory, but applies solely within the sphere of public contracts and concessions awarded by the Region. The Constitutional Court's ruling specifically concerns the Puglia case, but it evidently also serves as a green light for Toscana, which adopted a similar measure in 2025 – also challenged by the government – and for cities such as Genova, Perugia and Torino, where a minimum wage of 9 euros per hour is already a reality, or Firenze, where the measure is still under discussion (though already guaranteed by Toscana in any case).
At a national level, meanwhile – the debate has now been open for over two years – through petition drives, proposals for laws of popular initiative, and legislative proposals from opposition groups – there is growing pressure for national collective agreements to include a minimum wage of exactly 9 euros gross, adjusted annually in line with inflation. Yet this proposal has so far always run into the wall of the centre-right majority. And that is not all: under the budget law that Parliament is set to approve before the end of the year, should a judge rule that the pay provided for under the applicable national collective agreement is insufficient, the worker who has brought a claim will not even be entitled to all the "back pay" owed, but only to that accrued after the claim was filed.
