Employment and industrial relations in the railways sector

Over the last decade the Italian State Railways (FS Group), the main railways company in Italy, carried on with the reorganisation process started in the 1990s, with substantial reduction in the employment levels. In general, this restructuring process has been regulated through various agreements between the company and the main sectoral trade unions. Most part of these agreements envisaged early retirement and re-employability measures for redundant workers. Liberalisation processes opened the Italian railways sector to new companies, especially in the freight transport. The increasing fragmentation of the sector, the regional railways companies and the new entrants pushed social partners to sign the first industry-wide agreement for the sector in 2003. Moreover, in 2010, social partners reached an entente in order to create a national “mobility agreement”, which should govern working and pay conditions both in the railways sector and in the local transport sector.