University nurses: NHS contract only for new hires, others remain in Education

I have often addressed the issue of non-managerial staff who, despite working in former university hospitals, are formally employed by the Universities. I recalled, in particular, how Nursind on March 24, during the hearing in the joint Commissions, had requested the transfer of all the staff in question to the Health sector (article on this site of March 28, 2025), how the surreal division of nurses into two completely antithetical sectors has generated an unsolvable problem such as the 5% flat tax on overtime that applies only to nurses formally employed by companies and bodies of the NHS (Smart 24 lavoro pubblico – magazine of 26.5.2025), how – most recently – in the CCNQ signed last June 17, instead, non-medical health managers but not nurses have passed into the Health Area (Smart 24 lavoro pubblico – magazine of 19.6.2025). Well, the Government in a blitz at the beginning of the summer inserted in a decree law a final provision that addresses the scenario described above.

Legislative Decree no. 90 of 24 June 2025, entitled “Urgent provisions on universities and research, education and health”, published in the Official Journal General Series no. 144 of 24-06-2025 and entered into force the following day, with art. 6 entitled “Urgent provisions on university hospital companies”, provided the solution to the problem but in the most unexpected and, frankly, incomprehensible way. In paragraph 1, type a) university hospital companies “apply to non-managerial staff to be hired ... the national collective bargaining agreement of the Health Sector”. Paragraph 2 reiterates that “non-managerial staff, already hired by universities and who provide services, pursuant to an agreement, at the university hospital companies referred to in paragraph 1, retain the legal and economic framework within the collective bargaining agreement of the Education and Research Sector”. The competence to define membership in a sector or bargaining area is exclusively that of national collective bargaining, pursuant to art. 40, paragraph 2, of Legislative Decree 165/2001: the decree law in question is clearly a forceful entry into a matter that Aran and Confederazioni had not been able to resolve a few days earlier except for the managers. Not to mention considering among the "extraordinary cases of necessity and urgency", prescribed by art. 77 of the Constitution, a matter that has been going on for 24 years.

English: There are certainly political motivations behind this convoluted and sibylline provision, perhaps union interests and certainly reasons of fiscal impact, but the fact remains that, translating the rule from political jargon into understandable terms, the following configuration will occur: in the former directly managed polyclinics, the hundreds of nurses already in service on 24 June 2025 will continue to be discriminated against contractually and considered as "guests" by virtue of the agreement, while those who are hired from the same date will be assimilated in all respects to colleagues in companies and bodies of the SSN. In even more explicit terms, it will happen that in the same OU company, the nurses already present will have an ordinary tax on overtime work, credibly 35%, when their newly hired colleagues for the same overtime work will benefit from the substitute tax of 5%. I don't think there is anything else to add.