If you are an employee and receive your pay slip, scrolling through the various lists and salary items paid by your employer you may have noticed the presence of the amounts relating to the contingency allowance.
Many people do not know the real structure of this payment item. It is therefore good to delve deeper into this aspect to understand which items the contingency allowance refers to.
The Italian legal system provides for some terms to determine the minimum wages that various employees are entitled to.
These terms are mentioned in collective labor agreements. The so-called CCNL are instruments, therefore, that establish what the minimum amount paid to each worker for the basic pay item must be and which salary items to associate with the latter on the basis of the various recognitions made respectively to each employee.
It is precisely among these last voices that thecontingency allowance. In fact, it is a tool used by the Italian legal system to balance wages with the inflation rate of the State otherwise recognized as a sliding scale, this tool has been used by the State since 1992.
To fully understand the difference between contingency allowance and other salary items, it is useful to analyze each item on the pay slip to avoid further confusion.
Components of remuneration
The Italian Constitution provides that all workers have the right to a remuneration proportionate to the work performed analyzed in both quantity and quality.
Furthermore, the constitutional charter specifies that such remuneration must be sufficient to support oneself and one's family, thus guaranteeing a dignified and free life.
From this, the will of the signatories of the Constitution to outline the concept of emerges fair pay. Unfortunately, it is not defined what amount should be paid to each worker in order to comply with this concept.
This is why, in the Italian state through the collective agreements an attempt is made to fill this gap and at the same time fulfill what is required by the Constitution. Collective contracts, therefore, define, based on the worker's classification level, the respective minimum wages or as they are more appropriately defined minimum table. These values represent the minimum amounts that must be paid as remuneration to workers. The CCNLs are then used to establish all the other items to be paid to the employee. In summary, the national salary is divided between:
- basic pay;
- contingency allowance;
- seniority increments;
- individual superminimum;
- job-related allowances;
The basic pay
Base pay is the most common minimum wageThis is the amount that is paid to the worker based on their classification level.
Pay scales can be helpful in defining the basic pay due to each individual worker. The basic pay is of course subject to increases that occur with each renewal of the collective agreement.
During the various negotiations where the representatives of the employers and the unions meet, the first feedback is about the increase in the basic pay recognized for the coming year.
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Contingency allowance
THEwage adjustment to inflation is fulfilled in the provision of the contingency allowance in each paycheck. The old system, used until 1992, provided for an automatic adjustment of salaries to the respective related items, such as the cost of living in general, and followed a quarterly update.
ISTAT then calculated the cost of living using the prices of some basic necessities such as bread, pasta, milk, household appliances and other products as starting data. In the event of an increase in these prices, the contingency allowance was re-examined.
What was being sought stick up for it was then the purchasing power of money that workers received in their paychecks to avoid collapses of the national economic system following a collapse in consumption.
In 1992, on July 31, the so-called Memorandum of Understanding between the social partners and the Italian Government took place. Thanks to this event, this automatic mechanism was put to an end in favor of a collective bargaining implemented through the various contract renewals.
Despite the 1992 Memorandum of Understanding, even today some collective agreements still include the item relating to contingency allowance among the various salary items.
Contingency allowance in the minimum tables
The tools used today can therefore be summarised as follows: tables or minimum tables which frame each worker by assigning a contingency, which will be included in the basic pay.
The tables (which can be consulted from this page of the CNEL website) are formed by analyzing the various work sectors in broad terms. The first section concerns the CCNL of Commerce. The table presents a framework contingency of 540 euros.
The first level instead presents a contingency of 537,53 euros which gradually decreases as the worker's level increases until the seventh level in which a contingency of 517,51 euros is recorded.
Then follows the table of Metalworkers that has combined the two items of contingency and basic pay. It starts, therefore, from the first category with a contractual minimum of 1297,81 euros to arrive at the eighth with 2333,17 euros.
The CCNL of professional firms have also coupled the two items by incorporating the contingency allowance in the basic pay. The first category therefore presents a sum value of 1887,84 euros to arrive at the fifth category with 1315,12 euros.
Individual superminimum
The individual superminimum (which, unless otherwise specified in the contract, è also absorbable) represents a remuneration benefit paid in the event that the parties agree on the payment of a remuneration higher than the minimum provided for in the contract. This item is obviously linked to the personal characteristics of the worker and this is why it is recognized as ad personam remuneration
Seniority increments
- snapshots of seniority they concern all employees who develop a career within the company and therefore remain loyal to their employer. Once again, it is the collective agreements that support the calculation of the increments both in time and in their relative economic amount.
Duty allowance
Specific tasks are part of the salary components that support the employee for particular inconveniences in the ways in which he is called to work. This often happens in jobs where one is called to continuous availability and particularly heavy shifts.
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