The positive fact is that it is being talked about, but the prospects for its realization are strongly conditioned by the fact that each participant in the debate, when not expressing negativity, assigns the minimum wage a personal meaning that has little to do with the "minimum wage".
How to quantify the minimum wage?
The word itself says it all: the minimum wage cannot satisfy the "political" objective of an amount that is as high as possible even in comparison with other countries and that solves the problem of the purchasing power of employees.
In addition the minimum wage must apply to all paid hours which can be indicated in 173 or 174 hours per month or in a maximum of 2088 hours per year, hours substantially other than hours worked which hardly exceed 1600 hours taking into account the average absenteeism due to illness and other absences for various reasons, unless there are significant overtime activities.
Therefore, they can be identified two aspects of pay due to the worker: the minimum wage that is paid, in compliance with the law, by virtue of an employment relationship and the remuneration that is paid in relation to the task/performance in relation to the national/company collective bargaining and, why not, individual
The quantification of the minimum wage can be easily defined by reference the values disbursed by the redundancy fund (maximum of 1222,51 per month) which would lead to an hourly value of just over 7 euros per hour, an amount that would not compromise the "negotiating skills" of the union and business organizations to define higher contractual values linked to the performance.
The role of trade unions in the minimum wage debate
With regard to the "subjects of negotiation" it is necessary that they give up wanting to represent the exclusivity of the negotiation compared to the law.
I observe that eleven years after the exit of the Fiat group from Confindustria, the position of the contractual subjects (trade union confederations and Confindustria) still remains which, on the occasion of the ratification of the interconfederal agreement of September 2011, claimed their role in antithesis to the law which had introduced article eight which recognized the efficacy of the bargaining approved by the workers.
That position of the confederal trade unions and Confindustria determined FIAT's exit from Confindustria itself.
One wonders why this claimed exclusivity of the trade union relationship compared to the law has not determined the adequacy of wages that everyone complains today!!!
A minimum wage attested to around 7 euros per hour does not run the risk of increasing the undeclared work in activities that would not be sustainable with higher wages (domestic workers, discontinuous activities, etc.) let us not forget how the almost total cancellation of vouchers has made some activities difficult, especially in agriculture, while it would create new and different spaces for negotiation.
The national contract should no longer satisfy the art. 36 of the Constitution “the worker has the right to a remuneration proportionate to the quantity and quality of his work and in any case sufficient to ensure a free and dignified existence for himself and his family".
If the second part of the article is satisfied by the minimum wage as it is satisfied by the value of layoffs (no one has ever questioned the constitutionality of such amounts), the first part of the "compensation proportionate to the quantity and quality of his work" must be satisfied by national or corporate or individual collective bargaining.
Towards a reform of bargaining?
Bargaining can also be related to the hours worked and not to the total hours paid, resulting in a company productivity effect that would allow wage growth.
A new pay structure would therefore be created with the minimum wage defined by law, the welfare result of the bargaining both applied to all workers according to the employment relationship and the pay linked to the tasks-performance and actual hours worked.
The new impetus for wage bargaining, no longer conditioned by the constraint of irreducibility as it has been for decades, would need redefine the representation of negotiating parties, a situation that has never been addressed in legislative terms despite the declared "good intentions" and which has never materialized for a decade.
An agreement signed by whoever represents the majority of the workers would validate the union relations system and give companies certainties.
It seems to me that, today, negotiators are more concerned about defend one's role instead of facing the necessary transformations of the trade union relations system.
°°°The author was the Head of trade union relations at Marchionne's Fiat and protagonist of the Pomigliano dispute which led to Fiat's exit from Confindustria
