''And we will do like Spain….'' It is an update of an old popular song from the beginning of the XNUMXth century, which praised the Russia of the October Revolution. Today for the political and trade union left, the leading country is another: Spain which has set the standard in terms of work, downsizing what Maurizio Landini defines ''rampant precariousness'' with particular reference to fixed-term contracts. Elly Schlein he had written it in his motion. '' We must limit the use of fixed-term contracts starting with those of very short duration, as they have done in Spain involving employers' and trade union organizations, and make the stable contracts''.
Landini: we need to put an end to fixed-term contracts that prevent us from making plans
The first to wave, like a cudgel, the new discipline that came into force on 1 January was the leader of Uil Pier Luigi Bombardieri, who presented himself last year at the organizational assembly of the CGIL announcing that his organization would ask the government to follow theexample of Spain where term contracts were abolished. Obviously – as we shall see, Bombardieri was telling a half-truth (which is at the same time a half-lie). With this specific proposal, the Uil secretary had come to the aid of Landini who had already thundered in his introductory report: ''We must put an end to this form of work which prevents any project of life to many young people, many women, which hinders the growth and development of the South. No more precariousness means canceling forms of work that deny people's dignity and favor their exploitation".
The recipe of the CGIL partly in the footsteps of Spain
And here are the solutions indicated by CGIL: '' introduce a single job placement contract with a training contribution and aimed at employment stability; making public funding and subsidies to businesses conditional on job stability; overcome the aberrant principle that one can be poor by working. No more precariousness - Landini reiterated again - means that in companies, in public and private workplaces, disputes must be opened for the stabilization of precarious workers ". The XIX Congress of the CGIL which begins on March 15th in Rimini and ends on March 18th wanted to guarantee an authentic interpretation of the undertaking carried out by the Sanchez Government, inviting the Minister of Labour Spanish Yolanda Diaz and asking her to intervene in the debate.
From 1 January, fixed-term contracts cannot last more than six months (or a year in the presence of collective agreements) and can be used by companies for no more than 90 days in a year. As can be seen, it is a stretch to speak of ''abolition''. The speech expected from the minister in Rimini was anticipated by Collettiva, the online newspaper of the CGIL, where the following is written: ''The results were disseminated by Sepe, the Spanish Public Service for Employment, which also highlighted the data on youth employment. The jobless rate for the under 25s - which in the years after 2008 had reached peaks of 55% - has dropped to 31%. Now, and finally for this age group, permanent jobs are also increasing +142% in the last eleven months. But it is no coincidence: 2022, in fact, was the year of reform for the Spanish labor market thanks to an agreement reached on Christmas Eve 2021 between trade unions, the government and entrepreneurs. The agreement has overturned – and in the light of statistics now denied – the neoliberal paradigms'' (vade retro Satana!, ed).
But the difference lies in the rules of dismissal
It is a pity that these congratulations limit themselves to observing the tree, but not the forest or rather the discipline in force in Ispania felix as regards, not only the entrance but also theexit from the labor market. And here the donkey falls for the excessive load of omissions. The difference between the discipline of the Spanish employment relationship with the Italian one concerns primarily the dismissal rules.
If the Spanish labor judge, upon appeal by the worker, deems the dismissal as "improcedente" (illegitimate), orders the company to pay the dismissed employee an indemnity equal to 33 days' salary per year of service, up to a maximum of 24 months. Not many explanations seem necessary to identify the differences with the withdrawal system in force in Italy (there are vague similarities with the provisions of the open-ended contract with increasing protections referred to in Legislative Decree no. 23/2015, now also abhorred by the Pd ).
Here - before the law n.604/1966 (which introduced the justified reason) and the law n.300/1970 (which established the obligation to reinstate) - when the dismissal ad nutum was in force pursuant to article 2118 of the civil code (vi was only the obligation to give notice), the use of fixed-term work was severely limited by law n.230/1962 which sanctioned strict causality, to the point that dismissal before the expiry date was possible only for just cause. Then, it would be appropriate to pay attention to the changes that have taken place here in the labor market. According to the Observatory (which has the vagueness to define itself as ''of the precariat'' in accordance with the common vulgate) the recruitments activated (it is not entirely new employment) by private employers in the first ten months of 2022, were 6.935.000 , with an increase of 14% compared to the same period of 2021. The growth involved all types of contracts: there were 1.196.000 people hired for permanent contracts, which recorded the most marked growth (+24%); the increase in the various types of fixed-term contracts is also significant, with 609.000 hires for temporary workers (+20%), 299.000 for apprenticeships (+14%), 3.014.000 for fixed-term contracts (+13%), 909.000 for seasonal workers (+11%) and 907.000 for temporary workers (+7%). After 2015 – confirms the Observatory – there had never been such a high number of permanent hires in the first 10 months of the year. The transformations for fixed-term contracts in the first ten months of 2022 amounted to 628.000, showing a very strong increase compared to the same period of 2021 (+56%). In the same period, the confirmations (98.000) of apprenticeship relationships at the end of the training period mark an increase of 6% compared to the previous year. In the first ten months of 2022, the set of permanent contract changes (from fixed-term contracts and from apprenticeships) reached the maximum level of the last ten years, even exceeding the previous high level recorded in 2019 also due to the effect of the "Decreto Dignità ” (a resounding failure whose application was suspended very soon). Starting from March 2021, the annualized balance recorded a continuous positive dynamic, initially signaling the rapid recovery of pre-pandemic employment levels and subsequently further significant growth, albeit in the deceleration phase.
Paris burns protesting pension reform
Meanwhile – as an old film was titled – ''Paris is burning''. For weeks the whole country has been paralyzed by marches, demonstrations, blockades of all kinds to protest against the pension reform proposed by the Macron government. Truckers have set up roadblocks causing haulage to become haywire. Rail traffic and subway lines were severely disrupted. But when the unions violate all the rules of civil coexistence, they demonstrate their weakness. The president intends to go ahead despite the lack of a majority in the National Assembly, the opposition of the extremes, the uncertainties of the former Gaullists. The casus belli is the raising of the retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030, also accompanied by a lengthening – up to 43 years in 2027 – of the years of contributions useful for receiving the maximum pension.
The single regime hypothesized by the French government in line with the thinking of the CGIL
But the real question of which little is said consists in theintention of the government to arrive, at least for new hires, at a uniform regime which would leave behind the 42 social security schemes and funds now in force with objectively privileged treatments. Could the CGIL have failed to show solidarity with the comrades from beyond the Alps? Collective wrote: ''It is a reform, as stated by Premier Borne herself, functional to avoid the increase of the deficit and to prevent the French pension system from being kept in balance through the increase of taxes. A reform therefore – as the French trade unions point out – which is the perfect daughter of that culture of austerity which has governed the economic and political choices of Europe for many, too many years''. We should be appalled: the deficits would be part of a progressive culture, while the balance of public finances would be a return to abominable austerity practices. Furthermore, for the calculation of the pension there is a single regime based on a points system, a new method which seems to empathize with that of our contribution system envisaged in the Dini reform of 1995 which the government and Parliament wrote and approved under the dictation of the CGIL, CISL and UIL.
Il single treatment, in France, would cancel the concessions of many categories, whose current regimes allow pensions to be calculated on the basis of the most favorable years of contribution. To those who sympathize with the French trade unions today it should be pointed out that, in Italy, the battle for the uniformity of the rules, the overcoming of privileges, and not only for new hires, was fought by the large confederal organizations, competing against resistance also within their associative bodies, particularly in the public sector and in public services. In the mid-90s, the structure of the Italian statutory pension system consisted of as many as 47 pension schemes (administered by dozens of social security institutions). After a series of unification processes, since 2012, compulsory social security in Italy is made up of two large public poles: INPS which incorporated all the entities providing pension, welfare, employment, income support and family benefits (which recently also incorporated Inpgi); Inail which incorporated all the bodies providing accident prevention services. But more than the dimension of the organizational processes, the completion of which has been quite troubled for many understandable reasons, the most important aspect deriving from decades of reforms/counter-reforms has been the gradual but growing unification of the rules, in the general criteria (employee and self-employment) and in the specific regulations (employee). It was precisely the trade unions that asked for the abolition of privileges, first of all between public and private work, and the abolition of special funds. What are we to think? That the repudiations, repentances, self-flagellations of the political and trade union left will also affect the choices they make regarding pensions? Certainly the platform that for years they have been presenting to the governments that have followed one another in the past legislature is not an example of rigour, so much so that no one has taken it seriously so far. Not even, for now, the Meloni government, despite the similarities with the requests of the League. But we would like to spare ourselves the ''French bad''.
