Keywords: union fees; the subjective effectiveness of company-based agreements; metal-engineering sector.
The topic of «agreement-related fees» is very little investigated in legal
doctrine. An agreement signed by Fim-Cisl, and not by Fiom-Cgil,
in a Venetian metal-engineering company (Pometon S.p.a.) provides
that non-unionised workers and workers members of the non-signatory
union are given the possibility to individually subscribe to it by paying
the equivalent of a yearly union fee. The agreement raises several issues
and questions multiple aspects of the theoretical framework of union
representativeness and of the subjective effectiveness of company-based
agreements. The essay aims at analysing and reconstructing what actually
happens in the metal-engineering sector, where union cohesion has long
been abandoned.