The general text of the labor reform will be approved today by the Council of Ministers, then the government will present the final draft to Parliament with a formulation which, as Monti said, must prevent there being “abuses”. At that point the confrontation will take place in the Chambers, which (in the words of Minister Fornero) "will need to read the text, amend it, approve it or send us home because this too is part of democracy". These words make it clear that the government will hardly resort to the decree law, which moreover would mean for the Democratic Party (and others) to be faced with that famous "take it or leave it", already rejected by Bersani. The most probable path remains that of the enabling law.
In yesterday's meeting, the last one with the social partners, the government has held firm on the contents and has rejected any possibility of backtracking on article 18: the main road remains the one for which in the event of economic redundancies there will be compensation and therefore it will not be the judge who chooses between this hypothesis and that of reinstatement. In short, no German system, as requested by the Democratic Party, but also by the Cisl, the Uil and the Ugl, and on which the confrontation could also have been reopened with the CGIL. Monti however assured that the government will avoid the possibility of abuses.
If the government held firm, the fact remains that yesterday also showed a changed political-trade union profile. The CGIL appears less isolated, given the new requests, especially from the CISL. At the same time, there was strong resistance to the government's conclusions in the territorial base of the trade unions. As far as the parties are concerned, the Pdl insists on the decree law, to the point that Casini himself, who supports the reform with the third pole, has invited everyone to respect the plight of the Pd and to avoid provocative attitudes. As for the Democratic Party, the path remains that of the parliamentary battle to change the Monti reform. At the same time, however, Bersani has also rejected the invitations of those who, like Sel and IDV, invited him to immediately pull the plug on the government. For now, the road to the parliamentary battle is shared (with different accents) by the whole party, including Veltroni. And in the meantime it is Umberto Bossi's League that takes sides without ifs and buts in defense of article 18. Also significant is an intervention by the bishops with the Episcopal Commission which states: the worker cannot be treated as a commodity.
The President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano, who has followed and continues to follow the evolution of the affair with attention, scruple and institutional reserve and yesterday saw Monti and Fornero, insisted above all on one point: safeguarding social cohesion.
