About concertation and the Monti-Camusso controversy the following should be specified. The CGIL has never been in favor of incomes policy, at least until 1993, while it has always been in favor of concertation, which it has made extensive use of since the 70s. Incomes policy and concertation are by no means synonymous. The first aims to harmonize the income trend with the expected and/or planned inflation rate while the second provides for a preventive agreement between the social partners and between them and the Administration on investment policies, taxation, social security expenditure , care, the labor market, education and training and more.
Incomes policy in Italy has never been implemented while concertation has been abused and today we, but above all our children, as Monti rightly observed, are called to manage its negative legacy. Some of the main "multipliers" of Italian public spending belong to this legacy. In order and going back in time: the single point of the sliding scale, the linking of pensions to 80% of the last salary and old-age pensions. To these, by similarity and because they are the result of the same concerted logic, should be added: article 18, the fair rent, the Stammati decrees (which indexed the historical expenditure of public administrations) and the tax reform, which took away tax autonomy from the Local authorities to transfer it to the Centre. A veritable reverse Keynesianism which, instead of multiplying investments, multiplied debt.
LItaly was not saved by the development pact signed at Palazzo Chigi by Ciampi in 93, as Camusso says. It was rather Giuliano Amato in 92 who saved it, if that is exactly the way to say, first with the July agreement on the wage freeze, which the CGIL suffered and which even caused the resignation of its general secretary Bruno Trentin, and then with the "terrible" budget of October-December against which the CGIL mobilized with all its strength. The Pact for the development of 93 came later, after the rescue had already taken place, and if it undoubtedly had its merits, it also had two very negative consequences. The first was the de facto blockade of second-level bargaining (not least because of the stagnation of productivity) and the second was the establishment of a method of preventive comparison between all the social partners on the reforms so cumbersome as to effectively prevent the implementation of any reform, as confirmed by the story of pensions and that of the labor market.
Does this mean that nothing should be agreed upon anymore? Of course not. There are many problems that must be addressed in a direct confrontation between administrations and trade union organizations starting with social security, the labor market, active policies for re-employment up to the management of redundancies which will derive from the reform of the PA. However, these issues must be addressed at the right level and in their own forums. Taxation, welfare policies, reorganization of the PA and development policies are the primary responsibility of Parliament and the government and must remain so. The division of roles and respect for reciprocal competences are, on the other hand, one of the conditions for the correct functioning of democracy and the economy.
