Trade unionists from across Europe recently gathered in Rome for the ETF seminar “Organising and negotiating in Supply Chains: Building on the Experience of ETF Affiliates with Amazon”, supported by the European Workers’ Participation Fund (EWPF) of the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI). The purpose was to understand how Italian unions managed to do what many elsewhere have struggled to achieve: normalise industrial relations with Amazon and extend collective bargaining across a supply chain.
At the heart of the Italian case are the transport and logistics unions FILT‑CGIL, FIT‑CISL and UILTrasporti, widely regarded by many as a leading global force in organising and negotiating with Amazon at a national level. For many years, Amazon has been very successful in insulating its last-mile delivery model from collective bargaining. However, in Italy, this was overcome. This seminar was an opportunity to discuss how Italian trade unions managed to normalise industrial relations with Amazon, and what lessons it holds for unions elsewhere in Europe.
Background: “The Italian model”
Any assessment of the Italian experience must begin with the foundation upon which it is built. Collective bargaining in Italy primarily takes place at two levels: 1) Intersectoral or sectoral, within which clauses, wages and working time (among others) are set effectively at the national level. This is sometimes referred to as the “first level” and typically applies to all workers deemed to be included in that Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). 2) often referred to as the “second level” takes place at the company level and is there to facilitate industrial relations with items such as the introduction of new working methods in the work place.
Regarding Amazon in Italy, the first-level Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that applies is the Logistics, Goods Transport and Shipping CBA. This can be understood as a “supply chain agreement,” as it includes a wide range of occupations across warehousing, goods transport, and Courier Express and Parcel (last-mile) delivery.
This structure, of course, played a role in this success story, enabling Italian Trade Unions to adopt a supply chain-wide approach when negotiating with Amazon.
Fragmentation as a strategy
Amazon’s way of working is designed to diffuse responsibility. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in its delivery model(s). In Italy, last-mile drivers are employed by Delivery Service Providers (DSPs) rather than Amazon itself; commercial terms are centrally dictated, while labour obligations are transferred to subcontractors, and thus pushed down the chain.
Participants at the seminar recognised this pattern: subcontracting and other forms of precarious employment (such as temporary agency work in warehousing) are used to weaken bargaining power, fragment workforces, and depress wages.
The three Italian Unions underlined that they refused to accept this fragmentation as inevitable. Subcontracting was confronted as a labour‑relations strategy, and therefore as something that could be challenged collectively.
Organising the chain
Italian Trade Union representatives described a long and concerted (and still ongoing) capacity-building effort among subcontracted delivery drivers and inside warehouses, to build up the strength needed to tackle a giant such as Amazon. Engaging with workers both on and off of worksites, eventually, adequate strength was built up across the supply chain. In Italy, workers are not organised according to their legal employer or to a specific sector but really as a single logistics workforce, including crucially between those directly employed, indirectly employed and subcontracted.
This unity between these different categories of workers was highlighted throughout the seminar as the decisive factor. It prevented Amazon from pitting any one group against the other. Importantly, it also meant that, when it came time to strike, workers would be ready and willing throughout the chain.
Striking the Supply Chain:
The March 2021 nationwide strike featured in the Rome discussions. Its significance lay not only in its scale, but in its design. Building up on their capacity building efforts, it was a cross-union, unifying the unions of CGIL, CISL and UIL, as well as cross-company, mobilising both Amazon employees and subcontracted drivers.
Crucially, it disrupted Amazon’s end-to-end logistics system. Warehousing and last-mile delivery were impacted simultaneously. This played a significant role in bringing Amazon to the bargaining table and offers us a concrete lesson: in logistics, effective strikes must target the supply chain as a whole, not just isolated sites or one specific role within it.
This approach continues to this day, with strikes in April 2025 further building on the foundations laid by the CBA won in 2021. Pay will continue to increase, the working week will be further shortened, and, importantly, more workers will be employed on long-term rather than temporary contracts, with the right to suspend work in the event of adverse weather conditions.
The Role(s) of the State and the Employers’ Association
The government also played a role in having Amazon sign an agreement and engage in social dialogue in 2021. The Italian Minister of Labour at the time, Andrea Orlando, acted as a mediator to facilitate dialogue between Amazon, employers’ associations and trade unions, in particular in the aftermath of the 2021 strike.
Under the supervision of the Ministry of Labour, Amazon, the last-mile employers’ association Assoespressi, and the unions would go on to sign a protocol of understanding, allowing the talks on the application of the Logistics, Goods Transport and Shipping CBA to the Amazon supply chain to proceed. It is in no small part, thanks to the collective power of the workers the government stood up and took notice and saw the need to assist in the dialogue
The government’s involvement not only indicated a willingness to help resolve the issue, but it is also not to be underestimated, as it helped to create the system that is in place today. An effective social dialogue to which all parties, and importantly, workers, are participants. The last-mile employer’s association, Assoespressi, has openly stated that the agreement was “an important first step in the direction of a more modern system of trade union relations”[1].
The agreement and its contents are beneficial to companies and their workers. With a minimum wage set, it prevents a race to the bottom. Even if a job is further subcontracted, the minimum terms of the CBA still need to be applied to the worker performing the task, effectively levelling the playing field and forcing companies to compete at a higher standard and on a more equal footing.
A de facto supply‑chain agreement
The end outcome of these extensive efforts was the first genuinely supply‑chain-wide collective agreement, at least applying to Amazon, at a national level. It covers both directly and indirectly employed workers and establishes sectoral minimum standards throughout the chain. Ultimately demonstrating that industrial relations with Amazon can be normalised with considerable and sustained organising effort and time.
Conclusions: Lessons Learned
For logistics workers, the achievements of ETF Italian affiliates (CGIL, CISL and UIL) represent a significant collective victory. Of course, this does not mean the end but only a new beginning, as work continues in Italy, now in a more formalised social dialogue structure, to improve the pay and working conditions of the essential workers who maintain the flow of goods throughout the country and beyond.
The Italian experience highlights a few things for the Trade Union movement as a whole. Firstly, it is essential to consider the supply chain as a system and organise those who work within it collectively, not just within a single company or with a single category of worker. Crucially, where work is subcontracted or fulfilled by those in more precarious work, it is essential to include them and bring them on board, especially if they are the ones fulfilling the ultimate task of delivering to paying customers. This, of course, takes effort and a long-term commitment, a decade or more in Italy, but it is important to ensure industrial action truly disrupts the flow of goods rather than just signalling dissent, to bring eCommerce and Logistics giants to heel.
The case also shows the importance of a level playing field for the sector, particularly in last-mile. The CBA and the fact that it also covers those who are not directly employed have set a national standard that companies can not fall below, especially in terms of payment. This helps prevent social dumping and enables the payment of fairer wages, in particular to those groups of workers, such as subcontractors, who are often more vulnerable to wage dumping practices.
Of course, not all European countries have such a collective bargaining system, where intersectoral agreements are possible, and even those that do support it also discussed the need for stronger and meaningful regulation at the European level, particularly to curb the damaging effects of unregulated subcontracting and labour intermediaries, which is currently on the agenda of the next European Parliament Plenary.
The Italian case may not offer a simple universal blueprint. It does, however, challenge the idea that logistics and supply chains, even dominated by large, disruptive, multinational players, are inherently ungovernable. The seminar made it clear that when unions organise across supply chains, sustain unity and exercise power strategically, even Amazon, as the General Secretary of the ETF, Livia Spera, stated, “has to play by the rules”.
[1] Amazon, what the agreement between Assoespressi and trade unions provides for – Startmag