Translated automatically by AI from the Italian original.
PALERMO / REGION – Tensions over the regional Stability Law bill approved by the municipal executive led by president Renato Schifani have moved from the political arena to the trade-union front. This time the dispute centres on the allocations for staff of the Region of Sicily, which the autonomous union Siad-Csa-Cisal deems inadequate and the result of mere accounting manoeuvres.
In a joint statement, union leaders Giuseppe Badagliacca, Angelo Lo Curto and Gaspare Di Pasquale challenge the regional executive’s financial approach and demand transparency on the resources to be earmarked for upgrading staff protections.
Siad-Csa-Cisal: “The €20 million in the bill are not new money”
The union disputes the executive’s claim that the measure injects €20 million to enhance regional employees. According to Siad-Csa-Cisal’s analysis, it is merely an internal financial reshuffle:
“Staff of the Region of Sicily deserve real answers, not budget tricks: the €20 million provided in the Stability Law bill approved yesterday by the Schifani executive are not new resources but funds already in the FORD, the decentralised resources fund, which would simply be moved from one budget line to another. To raise allowances, meal vouchers and set up supplementary pensions we need extra money, not accounting gimmicks.”
The issue of the €117 million in unused savings
As well as criticising the newly allocated funds, the union officials put a direct question to the regional Economy and Presidency departments about the fate of the savings from staff restructuring and retirements over the past four years:
“We ask the government to explain what has happened to the administration surplus, and above all where the €117 million in savings made from 2022 to 2025 on regional staff have gone—those are new and immediately available resources. Regional workers have a right to clear answers, without resorting to budget tricks that will not improve their conditions one iota.”
The union organisation pledges to fight the measure during the parliamentary stages of the Stability Law bill, which will begin in the Sicilian Regional Assembly (ARS) committees.
