Ferragosto on strike: debate erupts over part-time work in large-scale retail

The Ferragosto strike — but data from the trade unions and businesses are not yet available — is said to have attracted limited participation in the retail sector. However, the demonstration has revived other issues.

The partial participation, incidentally, could be linked to the fact that the protest was launched locally, in Calabria and Tuscany, which are, among other things, two regions with substantial tourist flows, especially the latter, and therefore perfect for encouraging purchases.

Filcams Cgil: part-time work as poverty

Worth highlighting is the ‘after-effect’ that followed the protest. Filcams Cgil observes that work in retail is poorly paid, despite the fact that this sector is one of the pillars of the country’s economy.

There were more than a million businesses in 2023 accounting for more than a million businesses, 21,7% of the national total, and almost three million employees, equal to 18,6% of total employment.

But behind these figures lies a profound transformation. Between 2018 and 2025 retail businesses fell by 14,4%, while large-scale retail tends to be concentrated in an ever smaller number of large establishments.

Fewer shops and less local employment therefore exert growing pressure on the female and male employees of mass-market chains, who are expected to provide increasingly extensive services with often insufficient staffing levels.

The problem, however, concerns not only the organisation of work. It also concerns thequality of employment.

The latest report by Istat on the structure of earnings certifies that more than one million and 255.000 female and male workers receive less than 9 gross euros per hour.

Inps: how much does a retail worker earn?

Between 2018 and 2024 the proportion of employees on low pay rose from 9,8% to 10,7%. Women, young people under 29 years of age and those with lower educational qualifications are the most affected: precisely the profile most prevalent in retail and large-scale distribution. Women on low pay account for 12,2%, compared with 9,6% among men.

Data from theINPS Observatory also confirm a structural criticality: in 2024 retail employees received an average annual wage of 23.577 euros, spread over 261 working days. This figure shows that the problem is not only the level of pay, but also the fragmentation of work and income.

The main cause of this situation has a precise name: involuntary part-time work.

“Filcams Cgil,” the lengthy statement reads, “has been denouncing for years an employment model based on contracts of 20 hours per week, often imposed rather than chosen. The figures confirm this at national level: in the retail sector 38,2% of employees work part time (849.120 out of 2.221.670 in total), a proportion significantly higher than the general average for the Italian economy, which stands at 27,4%. The phenomenon is heavily skewed by gender: it affects 54,6% of female workers, compared with 22,9% of male workers. But the most significant figure concerns the nature of part-time work: only one third of Italians chose it voluntarily. In retail, part-time work is imposed in almost six cases out of ten: 57,8 per cent”.

Mauro Lusetti: “Collective bargaining must find the point of balance”

Confcommercio: the Ferragosto strike overlooks national collective agreements

The union was answered by Confcommercio, through its vice-president, Mauro Lusetti, who is also president of Conad.

“Every year, the summer debate on work activities and working hours returns punctually,” Lusetti recalls. “The social partners who regulate collective bargaining in the sector are always attentive to workers’ demands, as well as to the needs of the market and businesses.

“The point of balance between the needs of individual workers and those of businesses, which are called upon to meet consumer demand, especially during the summer and in holiday destinations, is and must remain, first and foremost, a matter for discussion between the social partners. And this applies especially to the quality of work, but also to pay, working hours and reconciling private and working lives. However,” Lusetti warns, “slogans and simplistic equations are not needed: it is collective bargaining that must find the point of balance between protecting workers, businesses’ needs and citizens’ and consumers’ demand for services. Precisely for this reason, it is misleading to consider part-time work, a priori, as synonymous with low-paid and precarious work.”

According to Filcams Cgil, Confcommercio continues, part-time work is often imposed rather than chosen: this condition would affect almost six out of ten workers, or 57,8%. A mechanism that, according to the union, would result in insufficient wages, make it difficult to achieve an adequate income and limit the possibility of seeking a second job. The union therefore argues that part-time work in retail has become a “structural impoverishment tool”.

Recent analyses by theConfederation’s Research Department instead make it possible to distinguish phenomena that are too often improperly conflated: in-work poverty does not automatically coincide with the level of pay and also depends on the amount of work actually performed, the hours and the days worked.

Nor should the role of the tertiary sector in creating employment be forgotten: in recent years, services have shown a capacity to absorb labour significantly greater than that of manufacturing.

The pay problem certainly exists and must be addressed, but it cannot be used to place every form of part-time work in the category of “low-paid work”. “Part-time work and precariousness are not synonymous, and confusing the two phenomena means offering a simplistic reading of a much more complex labour market,” Confcommercio concludes.

This content was translated with the assistance of artificial intelligence.