There are three salient aspects of the Confindustria Assembly held this morning in Rome: 1) the warm and prolonged applause that welcomed the President of the Republic as he entered the Auditorium and those addressed to Mario Draghi, the next president of the ECB, 2) the liquidation by Marcegaglia of the Berlusconi government with the affirmation that the 2000s constitute a "lost decade", 3) the expulsion of Fiat from the association for non-compliance with trade union rules.
The most sensational is precisely this last point. The president delivered the verdict off the cuff, detaching herself from the text distributed to all the participants. And she did so in a demagogic manner by appealing to small entrepreneurs who traditionally consider themselves anti-Fiat, with heavy statements such as "we don't bend the rules desired by the majority for needs of a single company", and again "the times are over when a few large companies influenced the position of the entire Confindustria". According to Marcegaglia, the majority of entrepreneurs want to go ahead with changing the rules of the labor market and the representation of trade unions in the company, smoothly but gradually, and therefore Marchionne's accelerations do not find Confindustria willing to follow him, assuming the risk of accentuating the union conflict.
In doing so, however, Marcegaglia has transformed a technical problem, due to the tangle of rules that characterize current labor law and the legal disputes initiated by Fiom against the separate contracts signed in Pomigliano and Mirafiori by the other unions and always approved by referendum by the majority of the workers, in a political problem. That is, it has launched a crusade of the small businesses of Confindustria against an alleged excessive power of the big companies. But Fiat acted in that way because it believes that the current contractual forms do not allow adequate use of the plants and do not ensure sufficient flexibility in production so as to be able to follow fluctuations in demand. Now faced with the risk of losing, at least in the first instance, the judicial disputes brought by Fiom, Fiat is faced with the need to leave Confindustria (temporarily) so as not to be forced to apply the contracts and agreements to date in effect.
Now the fiery words of Marcegaglia who stands in defense of the alleged interests of the little ones trampled on by the big ones, change the nature of the problem and lead Confindustria towards unknown and dangerous destinations. Behind the seizure of power by the small ones, only the power of the public industries ENI, ENEL, FS, Finmeccanica will remain in viale dell'Astronomia, which already today have a very strong influence. The renewal of the presidency is near, and we will see how these forces play out. The second point concerns the liquidation of Berlusconi's experience, which has failed to make the reforms needed to get Italy moving again, which for years has had a lower growth rate not only than Asian countries, but the European average.
A long list of things to do follows, some announced by the Government, such as a reduction in the tax burden, others not even planned, such as cutting public spending through a real reform of spending mechanisms and an effective privatization policy, especially at the level local, and still others that even move in the opposite direction to the necessary liberalization policy, such as the attempt by the parliamentary majority to reintroduce barriers to entry and minimum tariffs for professional services and for transporters. Finally, Marcegaglia emphatically underlined the continuous obstacles that the Public Administration causes in the life of companies, investments and daily management, imposing a thousand obligations that are almost always useless and costly. And then there are the costs of politics. We need – Marcegaglia argued – a real cut not only for reasons of reducing public spending but also for moral reasons.
When sacrifices are asked of all citizens, it is the leaders, and therefore the politicians, who must set a good example. And at this passage the most convinced applause was triggered by the audience of entrepreneurs, demonstrating how extensive and profound is the intolerance of many citizens towards a contentious and inconclusive policy. Marcegaglia's latest report to the Businessmen's Assembly bears witness to the general disorientation of the whole country in the face of a show made up only of power struggles (to then conquer an increasingly smaller power) which, moreover, does not seem exempt not even Confindustria itself. In the end, the pride of the entrepreneurial class is appealed to and a direct descent into the field is aired to give public testimony of one's private virtues. Who knows if it will be the right recipe.
