It would be right for young people to judge the goodness or otherwise of the labor market reform because it is above all for them that the reform was conceived and wanted. If this were the case, the amendments to article 18 would not be subject to such severe criticisms as those advanced by trade union organizations (not all to be honest) and by Left parties but would concentrate more on the limits of the Reform and, above all, on the uncertainties and delays with which trade unions, parties and institutions face the real problems of the labor market reform.
A Reform that really wants to open the doors (today closed) of the Labor Market to young people should first of all aim to overcome the dualism between "guaranteed" and "not". This objective can be achieved if two choices are made at the same time, as Minister Fornero did. If that is, on the one hand, the will is declared to bring the use of fixed-term or project work within physiological limits but, on the other, it is equally clear that there is no obligation for the entrepreneur who hires a young person to guarantee that young that job for life. This is what the reform of Article 18 aims to achieve and in this sense it is a measure in favor of young people. On the other hand, the increased contributions for fixed-term and project work are less acceptable. In reality, these are useful and necessary forms of work which should, if anything, be better regulated but not inhibited.
A reform of the labor market in favor of young people it should also provide that the young person is no longer left alone when he is looking for his first job or when, having found it, he risks losing it. It is in that moment that the state must fully deploy their "active labor policies". Implementing active labor policies means, above all, do Training and Retraining. It means assisting the worker in finding work, also through specialized and professional agencies, whether public or private. It means constantly monitoring the labor market to facilitate a meeting between the demand and supply of labor in order to be able to adapt school and training policies to them. Lastly, it means using social shock absorbers in a targeted and verifiable way, extending them to all the benefits.
But the most ambitious goal of the Reform should be to encourage a profound renewal of the Industrial Relations system. It is a very difficult goal to achieve because it presupposes the reversal of the very logic of the Concertation which from 1992 to today has regulated the relations between the social partners. In '92 and '93 the Concertation saved the country from bankruptcy and therefore it has enormous historical merit. But its continuation over time has introduced so many rigidities as to make any innovation practically impossible. Above all, it has drastically reduced the space for articulated negotiation at company level, thus contributing to widening the gap between the salary of the individual worker and the concrete contents of his job, which are professionalism, responsibility, effort and productivity. If the wages of Italian workers are among the lowest in Europe, just as their productivity is low, it is also due to this.
We need to break this vicious circle and to do so we need to give priority to articulated Bargaining over National Bargaining. Along this road it will be possible, for those who want to set themselves this objective, to arrive in Italy as well increasingly advanced forms of co-management. The German model, which is so often invoked inappropriately, actually presupposes a common assumption of responsibility by workers and entrepreneurs with respect to the future of the company. This thing that does not happen in Italy or, if it happens, as in the case of Fiat in Pomigliano, causes deep lacerations among the trade unions. Yet this is the way that would make it possible to increasingly reduce the area of arbitration, even in the matter of individual dismissals for economic and disciplinary reasons. Which would make it possible to anchor the defense of the workplace to the constant growth of the worker's professionalism and productivity rather than to the external intervention of the Judiciary and which would finally allow to entrust the resolution of the problems that gradually arise to the permanent confrontation between the parties they place in the life of a company without having to disturb judges, ministerial commissions or anything else.
The Fornero Reform goes in this direction and for this reason it is very important that it be approved quickly. But there is still a long way to go. We need to have the courage to innovate if we don't want a rift to open up between trade unions, institutions and young people and perhaps President Monti was thinking precisely of this danger when, speaking at the meeting of Communion and Liberation in Rimini, he observed that while a General Strike would not, in his opinion, have any plausible justification, a Generational Strike would instead have. And, still speaking of innovations, it is worth remembering the warning that Lord Melbourne addressed to the English Conservatives who distrusted innovations. “Those who resist improvements as innovations will soon have to accept innovations that are not improvements.” It would not be bad if those who, trade unions or political parties, today hinder the progress of this reform, reflected on this.
