Translated automatically by AI from the Italian original.
PALERMO – A picture of job insecurity and a real risk of functional collapse for hundreds of municipalities across the island. That is the alarm raised today, Monday 26 October 2026, by the Csa-Cisal union, which is shining a light on the plight of local authority employees in Sicily, the vast majority of whom are on part-time contracts.
According to the union’s estimates, almost 80% of staff currently employed by Sicilian municipalities are part-time, meaning they hold contracts that provide fewer than the standard 36 hours a week.
Badagliacca and Cannella’s complaint: “Pensions will be poverty-level and services are at risk”
The heavy consequences of this contractual arrangement are explained by the Csa-Cisal leaders Giuseppe Badagliacca and Gianluca Cannella:
“This situation has two dramatically negative effects: on the one hand, local authorities are unable to fully guarantee essential services to citizens; on the other, these workers will in future receive poverty-level pensions. We are urgently calling on the regional government and the Sicilian Regional Assembly (ARS) to allocate adequate financial resources to enable all employees to switch to full-time.”
Appeal to the region ahead of the budget manoeuvre
For more than two decades, the backbone of the island’s local administrative machinery has relied on the contribution of former temporary staff, who have gained permanent status over time but remain stuck on reduced-hour contracts. It is a deadlock that municipal coffers, often in a state of financial distress or pre-distress, cannot resolve on their own.
“Municipalities do not have the resources needed to increase hours, and there is a risk of service paralysis,” the Csa-Cisal representatives conclude. “The region has a moral and institutional duty to intervene in the next budget manoeuvre. We must protect workers and recognise their fundamental contribution to local communities; otherwise we are ready to call a general mobilisation.”
