The Constitution (art. 99) qualifies the National Council for Economics and Labor as an advisory body to the Chambers and to the Government for the relevant matters and according to the functions assigned to it by law, it confers upon it the power of legislative initiative, together with the right to contribute to the drafting of economic and social legislation in compliance with the principles and within the limits established by law.

The Law (December 30th 1986, n. 936), in implementation of the constitutional provision, specifies the scope of action of the body and provides it with the necessary instruments of action. The scope of the subjects on which the CNEL activity is based is set out in articles 10 and following of the Law and includes:

• economic and social policy and planning
• economic situation
• European Union policy and its implementation
• general, sectoral and local trends in the labor market
• regulatory and salary framework expressed by collective bargaining
• keeping the national archive of contracts and collective agreements with particular reference to the integrative 2-level bargaining.
• levels and quality of services provided by central and local public administrations to businesses and citizens
• evaluation of public policies

The contribution to the elaboration of the legislation, and the advising to the Chambers and the Government, in the subjects listed above, are expressed by the CNEL through a series of acts adopted by way of autonomous initiative, that is at the request of other constitutional Bodies, CNEL in particular.

• evaluations and proposals on the most important documents, as well as political and economic and social planning acts;
• opinions, mandatory and non-binding;
• reports on general, sectoral and local trends in the labor market and on the regulatory and salary frameworks expressed by collective bargaining;
• examination, on the basis of reports prepared by the Government, of EU policies and their implementation;
• own-initiative observations and proposals;
• own-initiative studies, surveys and research;
• annual report to Parliament and Government on the levels and quality of services provided by central and local public administrations to businesses and citizens;
• keeping and updating the National Archive of contracts and collective labor agreements in the public sector, preparing an annual report on the state of collective bargaining in public administrations;
• annual conference on the activity carried out by public administrations, for the discussion and the comparison on the progress of public administration services and on emerging problems;
• designation of representatives of the productive categories and of members in national public bodies