Change of collective agreement without union consent: anti-union conduct

The dispute arose from the employer’s unilateral decision to terminate the collective agreement applied to its workers and replace it with a different sectoral agreement. The trade union organisations challenged the decision and obtained, at the summary stage, an order declaring it unlawful. The company filed an objection, arguing, among other things, that the new agreement was more consistent with its actual business activities and that the conditions applied were more favourable to workers.
The Tribunal dismissed the objection and confirmed the anti-union nature of the conduct. The judge clarified that unilateral withdrawal from the “leading” collective agreement, in the absence of prior engagement with the most comparatively representative trade union organisations, constitutes a breach of trade union prerogatives.
The ruling emphasises two aspects in particular. First, the irrelevance of the potentially more favourable nature of the new agreement, which is not capable of remedying the breach of the method of industrial relations. Second, the centrality of comparative representativeness as a criterion conferring on collective bargaining a privileged regulatory function. The judge also noted that the characterisation of a company’s business activity must be assessed on the actual facts and cannot be used instrumentally to justify a change of collective agreement. It follows that replacing the applicable CCNL, where it affects established arrangements without agreement, may be scrutinised as anti-union conduct.