Once the ceremony of the "States General" is over, it is hoped that the government will comply concrete choices for recovery. After the pandemic we will inevitably have to deal not only with Europe, which you will have to explain how to use common resources, but also with the chronic criticalities of our country (low growth and productivity levels, ratio between public debt and GDP, inefficiency of the PA, shadow economy and tax evasion) already well understood before the coronavirus, to which are added civil emergencies such as the School and the Judiciary.
The risk is to turn the post-health economic crisis into one social crisis which could be followed by one political and institutional crisis. Without effective and timely measures, we can already glimpse the signs of a "black september” made of desperation, anger, rebellion and violence, a sort of “nineteenth” with politically uncertain connotations. Getting back to growth is essential: it is necessary to guarantee the rebirth and continuity of businesses without wasting any more time, incentivize corporate contractual agreements for the increase in productivity and competitiveness which are the key factors for maintaining market shares and guaranteeing employment.
It is astonishing that it is not immediately decided to substantially modify the unfortunate "Dignity Decree” at the time when the first ones the holders of a fixed-term contract lost their jobs which the law prevents from extending. On this ground, the initiative of the social forces is decisive. Until now the union, which has remained on the defensive, will have to face the new situation and make courageous and adequate choices in the face of a counterparty which, if only out of necessity, will not stand still.
The objective indicated by the new president of Confindustria, Carlo Bonomi, of re-discussing sectors and contractual arrangements by adopting seven reference categories (manufacturing, construction, agriculture, commerce and services, transport, banks and insurance) and a decisive transfer wage bargaining at company level. Bonomi proposes to "redefine a shared vision of the new job and the rights to permanent training and corporate welfare from below between companies and trade unions to which we are called on a subsidiary basis given the public inadequacy".
That being the case, if there were a strategic divergence between the parties, it would be easy to predict that individual contracts that have expired or are about to expire, starting from the metalworking one, they will not be renewed as customary dictates. The search to identify larger sectors, such as manufacturing, are functional to decentralize the most important part of wage negotiations by linking it to the organization of work and the results obtained.
What will the union do? A confrontation would not bring great results, because the new Confindustria leadership is playing today in a strategic dimension and on an objectively favorable terrain. The old expedients of the union tactic of dividing the bosses' front would not be of much use, at least in the short term, which however is the decisive one. This is why the whole union, including confederates and autonomous (by the way what happened to the unity of rules project to democratically elect delegates?), to manage a difficult and unexpected scenario.
Landini and its partners will have to leave behind a past of clichés and generic buzzwords to face a challenge that sees the company as a reality made up of solid common interests between workers and owners and which is a source of value (to be divided ) and values (such as solidarity, responsibility and recognition of merit) which are the engine of growth. It would be the right time to resume planning the methods of worker participation in company management.
As well as the same huge difficulty that has been recorded for some time in finding the professional profiles required by companies it requires innovative capacity and would require the abandonment of the traditional training model aimed too much at assistance. The identification and management of Active Labor Policiesshould no longer be relegated to a simple administrative function, to a game of incentives and, where appropriate, to the professionalism of the Employment Agencies. In the bilateral trade union-company system, the training and employment systems must be reconstructed to make the labor market more fluid and efficient, a function that the trade union cannot exercise at the company level but only at a local level, and which alone would be sufficient to justify the existence of the Confederations.
