The document by CGIL, CISL and UIL for "a modern system of industrial relations" will hardly go a long way. To tell the truth, it must be underlined that in the most difficult (but also most important) moments of trade union history, when the balance of power was not objectively pro-labour, the declared objectives then gradually adapted to reality, making a virtue out of necessity while creating deep divisions between the reformist components and the maximalist wing of the "movement".
This is what happened in the long and painful story of the escalator. The trade union meetings began in April 1981, when the "Tarantelli proposal" for the predetermination of the escalator points was presented for the first time by Pierre Carniti, but the negotiation dragged on until the fateful February 14, 1984 with all the ensuing consequences . Reality always takes over and, albeit with difficulty, in the long run everyone takes note of it. Who in the Confederation led by Susanna Camusso would argue today that the decision to sign the San Valentino agreement was a betrayal or, more simply, a mistake on the part of the Cisl, Uil, and the CGIL socialists?
Not much time has passed since the exit of the then Fiat from Confindustria accompanied by the signing of a national-company agreement (from which Fiom-Cgil excluded itself) which shattered the myth of the inviolability of the supremacy of the national collective agreement, opening the way to the model of industrial relations applied in Germany.
The story of article 18 is even more recent: the union took a unitary and compact position "against any tampering", but was then forced to acknowledge that it was isolated in the country and limit itself to more formal rather than substantial protests.
The trade union document contains reflections and proposals that must be taken into serious consideration, but three aspects (to which is added a gross underestimation) are blatantly contradictory and inadequate if we want to be the protagonists of an effective change.
The first is the one who would like to attribute to the national contract not only the task of defending the purchasing power of wages but also that of distributing part of the productivity wage. If productivity growth is one of the cornerstones of the recovery of the Italian economy, this is not the most effective way, even if a credible solution must be provided to the complex issue of the decentralized territorial level of bargaining.
The confederal proposal arrives a few days before the resumption of negotiations between Federmeccanica and the metalworkers' unions for the renewal of the national contract. The union front is now united. But could it withstand a long war of position with a boss certainly not insensitive to the "Marchionne model" with a government that declares itself available only to adopt the agreement when it is signed?
The second aspect concerns the attempt to contractually reinstate some regulations recently modified by the Job's Act. Without going into the merits of the request, the fact is that this approach "rehabilitates" the reviled "article 8" of Minister Sacconi which attributed to union agreements the power to change almost all labor laws. If the trade union judgments of the past were to be considered current, this could prove to be a risky move and a double-edged sword that could lead to opposite results to those desired.
The third is represented by the (positive) rediscovery of the "constitutional dimension" of the union's role which curiously (but not too much) is done by recalling articles 39 (representation and general effectiveness of contracts) and 46 of the Charter (participation) but forgetting the article 40 (right to strike and its regulation). In this way, the principle that power and responsibility are two sides of the same coin is not accepted.
Government or control functions cannot be exercised without assuming the related responsibilities. The strike, which is a cornerstone of democracy, is an individual right exercised collectively, through agreed rules, by the workers who hold it. Articles 39 and 46 of the Charter cannot be implemented unless at the same time as article 40. Once we would have said “simul stabunt, simul cadent”.
Finally, we should point out a serious underestimation of the phenomenon of fatal accidents, where the document is limited to reporting in bureaucratic terms a trend reversal. The point is that we are facing a growth of well over a hundred deaths at work between 2014 and 2015, which deserves not only a strong denunciation but also concrete initiatives in a short time. One thing is certain: without untying the knots and contradictions, we run the risk of repeating the script of a trade union which, while maintaining an important representation of the world of work, fails to achieve adequate results.
