Where did the idea of the volcanic Minister of Labor Luigi Di Maio to restore the Redundancy Fund for Cessation of Company Activity eliminated in 2015 by the Jobs Act? From concern for the fate of workers involved in corporate crises inherited from previous governments, the minister responds paternally. To tell the truth, the Renzi and Gentiloni governments have resolved dozens of corporate crises, the latest being Embraco. But it is not so much this affirmation that is worthy of note, as the fact that the "Government of Change" cultivates the idea that there will no longer be company crises, because the law will forbid them: for now we have started with relocations, (but certainly does not end here…).
What is astonishing in the interview given to Corriere by Gino Giugni's heir is instead the “ethical” motivation of this operation: “…otherwise they end up in the vortex of the Employment Centers at the age of 50-60. Until we reform them (employment centres) these families need help”.
To understand this statement, it is necessary to take stock of what the Jobs Act provides in this regard: the Extraordinary Redundancy Fund, disbursed in the event of company crises that require restructuring processes, lasts a maximum of 24 months, against a consolidated practice over the last 35 years which, between one ploy and another, allowed one to stay in CIGS even a disproportionate number of years even for companies closed for a while. The Jobs Act provides that after the 24 months of CIGS without having returned to the company (except in exceptional cases to be verified from time to time) the worker loses his employment relationship and receives, for a maximum of two years, SLEEP, basically an unemployment benefit.
With measures subsequent to the Jobs Act, the Renzi and Gentiloni governments established a close relationship between the perception of NASPI and participation in active relocation policies, through the establishment of theRelocation allowance, which finances the participation of the unemployed worker in outplacement programs on a voluntary basis, and is paid to the outplacer only in the event of a positive outcome. It is an attempt to bring the Italian labor market to the level of the European ones, where the loss of a job is naturally responded to with income support measures, but above all with relocation: the Active Policies.
It is above all a cultural revolution, for a country used to thinking in terms of assistance as a sovereign measure against unemployment, and in which the idea of a do-it-yourself welfare is in force, in which the Cash Integration is accompanied by some undeclared activity.
The very idea of relocation is experienced as a disturbance to the solution "Redundancy Fund + Let's get by". The problem is that these solutions have always been widely shared and popular (the workers managed to get by, the Unions could show that they had protected workers' income, the politicians bankrolled their customers) to the extent that the State paid so much (which in Italy, as we know, are not all of us but a foreign entity which, in mysterious ways, must provide…); but the even more serious criticality was that the workers settled down in these situations they became irreplaceable and formed a pocket of unemployment to be maintained for life: to this we owe the institution of early retirement.
The Jobs Act has specified that the redundancy payment has a precise term and (especially if there is a cessation of the company's activity) cannot last ad libitum. It integrated the unemployment allowance (NASPI) with economic support for relocation (Assegno di Ricollocazione). Subsequently, it allowed a worker involved in a company crisis that could generate redundancies to have the Redeployment Allowance even if he has not yet been fired. This because the chances of relocating a worker decrease as the state of unemployment continues (experience says that the difficulty statistically increases starting from the fourth month of unemployment).
If there are weaknesses in the system instituted by the Jobs Act are essentially in the fact that the Relocation Allowance is voluntary, and it suffices that it be activated before NASPI expires (24 months), i.e. too late to make a relocation credible. In most European countries, participation in outplacement programs is compulsory, under penalty of losing unemployment benefits.
The "Government of Change" is moving on a completely different horizon: as evident, the first objective of the restoration of the Fund for Termination è extend the income support period (one year of CIG + 2 of NASPI, and then who said that the CIG for termination should be only one year ..?). However, since they have heard of Active Policies, they do not exclude that in the future, when they will have "reformed the Employment Centres” can also be done. Not now, because the Employment Centers are a "whirlwind".
Indeed the Employment Centers are not the tool sine qua non for placement. Where the outplacement experience works (as in Lombardy) the CPIs and other private entities accredited by the Region work together, with very good results. However, evidently the Minister is not aware of it, or if he is aware of it, he looks with suspicion at this "privatization of employment": after all, he has already tried to penalize temporary agency work in the so-called Dignity Decree.
But basically the minister's interest in Employment Centers is completely independent of the problem of outplacement, which the 5S declassify as a simple side effect of the real revolution: Citizenship Income. Since this should be the great leviathan of welfare and the labor market: unemployment benefits, employment services, subsistence allowances, the fight against poverty, everything will be integrated into this salvific and miraculous tool managed of course directly by the Public Administration. The very idea of labor policies gives way to this grandiose vision of a state that guarantees everyone an income, in relation to which work is a desirable hypothesis, but not a foundation of the social system. Exactly the opposite of the constitutional provision, to which too many pay homage with instrumental rhetoric, which outlines an Italy "founded on work".
And it's not just a matter of resources: it would already be an enormous effort to guarantee everyone the redeployment allowance, and clearly if you finance an extension of the redundancy fund, you do it at the expense of redeployment resources. It is also a cultural question: the country needs more employment, which is not created with decrees and bans but also with a modern job market, where job losers have the tools they need to find new ones.
But for the "Government of Change" the priority is evidently not employment but guaranteed income to all citizens. So it is logical that in the scale of emergencies it comes first the prolongation of assistance to the unemployed rather than making relocation policies more efficient and financed.
The "Government of Change" is bringing the labor market back to the XNUMXth century: not surprising after all, for those who set happy degrowth as the horizon of their actions.
