Abstract

The author takes into consideration the inter-sectorial agreement stipulated by the social partners on June 28 2011, for the first time in the last several years unitarily by the three main workers unions, and art. 8 of the decree n. 138 of August 13 2011 (converted in Act n. 148 of September 2011) and poses some questions: are the agreement and the art. 8 coherent? Is art. 8 constitutional? The main characteristics of the agreement are analytically examined: the scope of the collective agreement, the structure of collective bargaining, the representativeness of trade unions, the right to strike and the capacity of a company agreement to derogate the national branch agreement and the law. The conclusions are a problematic interpretation of the inter-sectorial agreement and a severe critique of art. 8.