Inflation, which until recently aroused concern due to its constant tendency to fall below 2%, a value considered necessary to foster growth, has risen rapidly in a few months reaching 5% in Europe and exceeding 7% in the USA and it quickly became a primary critical factor. It will be said that this was to be expected, since the global financial mass has today an unknown dimension in history and that the distortions of globalization and financial speculation, accompanied by the consequences of the pandemic, have slowed down the scale of world growth and generated enormous public debt.
The energy crisis
Unfortunately, that's not the only problem. To it must be added the energy crisis induced by international events and by the acceleration towards a transition with the use of non-polluting sources which finds our country in particular in greater difficulty, also due to the enormous delay in the diversification of energy sources, although it has been invoked for more than 40 years now .
Inflation in Italy
Inflation in Italy from the XNUMXs to today has marked 7,5% in 1963 to then fluctuate from 1973 to 1985 between 10,8 and 9,2%, with the dramatic peak of 21,2% in 1980, when, recalling Weimar, it was said that first the currency melts and then democracy falls. Then for about twenty years inflation continued to decline until it reached minimum levels, in 2021 at 1,9%.
The escalator and the 1984 Valentine's Agreement
A relevant component of the phenomenon, attributed in the 80s to the mechanism of escalator, was the subject of fierce negotiations which resulted in theValentine's Agreement on February 14, 1984 with the breakup of union unity which was followed by the referendum promoted by Enrico Berlinguer and ended with the defeat of the Communist Party.
The unions' agreement with the Ciampi government
It was a real turning point, made dramatic by the circumstances of the PCI secretary's premature death during a rally, and which in the following years also led to other moments of conflict but finally found an outlet in theagreement of all trade unions and entrepreneurs with the Ciampi government in 1993, which initiated an orderly overhaul of the system collective bargaining in the name of income policy. The assumption of responsibility for the rehabilitation and development of the country also brought the union to the fore as a political entity.
The tasks of the union: not just wages and inflation
Can history repeat itself? It is possible and certainly desirable. Unfortunately, today the situation is complex and above all a worsening is not excluded which could accentuate the social conflict to the point of making it dramatic. It is undeniable that the union is forced to preside over a very vast frontier, from the loss of the real value of wages to tax reform, from employment (think of the automotive industry) to pension reform, from a more balanced model of industrial relations which also introduces real participatory experiences in the search for the most suitable tools to fight poverty without resorting to forms of generalized assistance which end up not really protecting the weakest.
And finally the unresolved question of the implementation of the constitutional provisions, starting with article 39, to safeguard at the same time the freedom of negotiation at every level and the recognition of the actual representativeness of each organization. If the union were to make a bundle of everything, it would make a serious mistake which would lead it to a head-on collision with the Government which, like it or not, has the resources of the PNRR which are an unrepeatable opportunity for the rebirth of the Italian economy and society.
Today, the sliding scale against inflation would be a mistake
Of course, it is not easy to start a discussion on individual issues without ignoring that they are all part of a system of communicating vessels, but this is the most effective tactic to unravel the skein. In particular, in matters of salary that would be a mistake, for the same reasons as forty years ago, think of a sui generis restoration of the old escalator, which survived in part not as a mechanism but in the IPCA index, albeit without the international component.
Focus on national and corporate contracts
It is necessary renew individual national contracts their deadlines also launching a generalized campaign of company contracts, exploiting all the potential linked to growth parameters and which can benefit from tax incentives. The difficulties of territorial second-level bargaining are real, but it is a challenge that cannot be renounced.
Entrepreneurs are the great absentees
On the other hand, serious tax reform would complement a widespread bargaining season. The union's search for a more current strategy is out of the question to avoid the risk of its isolation. But the union is not the only subject called to take charge of the emergency and what is asked of the union must apply to the Government and, even more so, to the political forces and business associations. The latter appear to be for the truth the great absentees.
Employers' representative bodies may be urged to take on new responsibilities and to compete in a constructive confrontation to get out of the serious difficulties of the whole country. Giulio Tremonti has good reasons to argue that the problems that exist cannot be solved by the "old globalists, elites who are their own old regime" and that "new spirits will have to emerge". It is also true that today, as the legendary director of Federmeccanica Felice Mortillaro used to repeat to remind reality, quoting Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni, "Madamina, this is the catalogue".
