If the Delta variant does not get out of hand, if a modus vivendi is found in organizing the safe return to work (the controversy over the green pass is absurd) in the autumn it would be possible to consolidate a recovery trend that promises to be more promising than that of other European partners. However, there are some not encouraging signs regarding some government-level initiatives that do not understand the needs of accompanying development. This is what emerges in the first place from the general lines of the reform of social safety nets presented by Minister Andrea Orlando on 9 August last.
As Alessandro Barbano wrote on the Huffington Post commenting on the proposals contained in the 6 pages of the document, rather than ''absorbing the effects of the crisis unleashed by the pandemic and supporting the productive transition that awaits us, facilitating the retraining and reintegration of expelled workers'' however, the direction taken is quite different: “to set up a new gigantic machine of public subsidies, which crystallizes the crisis and loads it on the shoulders of the state budget, ie on the debt that the children and grandchildren will pay. The return for politics is once again the consent retention, at a price of eight to nine billion euros a year. It would be the citizen's income bis, a powerful lever of social rights, this time in the hands of the Democratic Party, capable of recovering the lost trust of the popular classes and reinforcing union collateralism ".
The basic approach of the Orlando reform, in fact, is the continuation ''by other means'' of the freeze on layoffs and its task seems to be that of guaranteeing for as long as possible the redundant workforce linked to the company to which it belongs, even if it does not have of perspectives, rather than activating the tools and resources to relocate those who have already lost that job, because the crisis, the restructuring and reconversion processes, the leaps in technologies have wanted it this way. The crucial point lies in the modifications proposed for layoffs whose interventions are dilated in a conservative logic in their particular purposes. To signal this overflow are the two new reasons: proposed cessation of activity and judicial liquidation. The extraordinary layoffs treatment can also be requested for transition processes (prospective cessation of activity) by SMEs with fewer than 15 employees.
The line is that of Maurizio Landini: ''Shock absorbers must be the path to choose before opening personnel reduction procedures''. It wouldn't be about using that anymore income support instruments in view of a recovery, in more or less long times in relation to the reorganization and reconversion processes to be faced. Social safety nets should also be used to prolong the agony of a production site, just to maintain the legal continuity of employment relationships that are actually already finished. Thinking about it, this is the line that the unions are pursuing in that group of companies that have become, even at the media level, the sign of what has happened and can still happen after the unblocking of layoffs. To put it frankly, we are thinking of a reform of social safety nets aimed at solving the problems of employees of companies (primarily multinationals) who want to close, not of those looking for manpower to hire to continue working.
That this is the strategy of some sectors of the government can also be understood from an examination of the draft decree against relocations. Based on the identification of the companies to which the new provisions would apply, it would seem like a decree and following the best practices (only the indication of the companies would be missing, otherwise it could be called the Whirlpool decree). These would be companies which on 1 January of the current year employ at least 250 employees with permanent employment contracts and which intend to proceed with the closure of a production site located in the national territory with definitive cessation of the activity for unspecified reasons from patrimonial or economic-financial imbalance which makes a crisis or insolvency probable. These companies would be required to give advance notice with an indication of the economic, financial, technical or organizational reasons for the closure project, the number and professional profiles of the personnel employed and the deadline within which closure is envisaged.
The further fulfillment consists in the presentation of a plan with the planned actions a) for safeguarding employment levels and interventions for the non-traumatic management of possible redundancies, such as relocation to another company, active employment policy measures, such as orientation services, assistance for relocation, training and professional retraining, aimed at re-employment or self-employment; b) the prospects for the sale of the company or company compendiums for the purpose of continuing the business, also by means of the sale of the company, or its branches, to workers or cooperatives set up by them; c) any projects for the conversion of the production site, also for socio-cultural purposes in favor of the territory concerned; d) the times, phases and methods of implementation of the envisaged actions.
Continuing, a sibylline ''structure for the company's crisis'' would enter the scene, which would conclude the examination of the plan within thirty days of its presentation. The same structure, having heard the trade union organizations and Anpal, would approve the plan if the overall examination of the actions contained therein proves to be sufficient guarantees to safeguard employment levels or the rapid transfer of company compendiums. With the approval of the plan, the company undertakes to carry out the actions contained therein within the timescales and according to the programmed methods and to make the envisaged communications.
The procedure collective dismissal could not be launched before the conclusion of the examination of the plan. There would be heavy financial penalties if the company fails to submit the plan or proceeds to shut down despite its lack of approval. Luckily it is a draft that we hope will ''fled from the sen''. Because we cannot believe that such a decree could have been conceived by a clear mind. Someone will be well aware that, with these rules, a foreign company wishing to invest in Italy would ask itself the following question: but in a country where civil justice does not work is it ever possible that the only trial I would have to undergo would concern my choices productive? In the labor movement there was much discussion in the last century of ''socialism in one country''. Today we have come to socialism in a single company.
