Blockchain applied to new national collective labor agreements (ccnl).

Assopostale: What is it?

Assopostale is the reference trade association for private operators who offer their services nationwide in the postal and logistics market. Founded in 2017, the association has actively contributed to the regulation processes of the reference market at the national and European levels. Both traditional postal operators and operators engaged in the urban delivery of consumer goods and groceries, a highly requested service, as well as home package delivery, adhere to the association.

Logistics: Italy’s backbone

During the health emergency, when everyone understood the importance of being able to receive shipments at the requested address in the shortest possible time, logistics returned to the center of public debate with the nickname of Italy’s backbone. In reality, globalization on the one hand, and proximity services to citizens on the other, had been transforming the way logistics is done for years. These factors, combined with the latest technology, have generated new types of postal operators, all highly specialized in specific services falling within the postal and logistics market supply chain. These are the food delivery or retail grocery urban couriers that have originated the now-famous “rider” figure. This is an important evolution for the entire sector that generates new entrepreneurship and employment, through which a restyling in a green and sustainable perspective not only of the courier figure but also of cities that are becoming increasingly “smart cities.”

Blockchain: technology serving new and old national collective labor agreements (ccnl).

The current lack of clear regulation in this area, repeatedly requested by Assopostale in the appropriate forums, has thus postponed the need to regulate an emerging market with a new category ccnl capable of absorbing and managing the change for which Assopostale, in the person of President Valterio Castelli, Alessandro Del Frate, and Secretary-General Emanuel Bonanni, and the CIU Union (Italian Confederation of Union of Intellectual Professions), in the person of President Gabriella Ancora and Prof. Vitaliano Capicotto, have already signed an agreement on industrial relations.

And it is here that the certified blockchain technology (explained in the link here) could play a decisive role in projecting the labor market into a new dimension.

An entrepreneurial market that depends essentially on the volume of goods moved daily can offer benefits to employers and employees if the concept of “flexibility” is introduced first and foremost in the category contracts, even better if guaranteed by the certification of hours worked.

Recent news is about another category ccnl that introduces the anomalous figure of the “self-employed employee” for which a gross remuneration is provided for each hour of actual work, but without explaining how to estimate the time required to make a delivery.

Assopostale: ideas for applying blockchain to ccnl.

For Assopostale, it is no longer the time for tricks useful to keep delivery services sold at a loss alive, and that is why it is studying a ccnl capable of relying on the flexibility of the working hours for each employee, with the possibility of certifying the hours actually worked, perhaps through the use of blockchain technology.

It could be a significant development for the entire postal, logistics, and delivery sector: first of all, the introduction of an hourly cost appropriate to the quality of service, the possibility for companies to hire personnel not on a full-time basis but with a set number of hours to be distributed over time, perhaps reintroducing the concept of a time bank with included allowances, thirteenth and fourteenth month pay, vacation and sick days, and the possibility for employees to certify with blockchain technology (explained at the link here) the hours worked in the company, within the limits allowed and flexibly based on the volumes of goods to be managed, with the possibility for them to accumulate more contracts with different companies based on hours worked.

These are currently ideas under study, with which Assopostale and CIU intend to accompany the change in a market that still generates an estimated turnover of over 180 billion euros annually, and blockchain technology could certify access to the labor market capable of valorizing the commitment of the parties involved and maximizing the freedom of workers who could decide how to allocate their working hours.