One of the main characteristics of the Italian public administration (PA) is the recognition of its function as representative of state and national sovereignty. Thus, in the republican phase of Italian history and with the adoption of the new Constitution (from 1948 onwards), both the organisational and above all the contractual aspects of the PA have always been regulated by parliamentary laws or in any case by acts with the force of national law. Secondly, the PA has been distinguished over the decades, compared to the private sector, by the strong roots within it of the three historical trade union confederations of socialist and communist (CGIL), social-democratic (UIL) and Catholic (CISL) matrix.
