Let's talk about it, but not calmly. This is the gist of it phone call from Prime Minister Mario Monti to union leaders of CGIL, CISL and UIL regarding the hot topic of work, which is politically marking the transition from the old year to the new and which will be the subject of the first package of measures that the government intends to launch to promote growth and development (scheduled for the second half of January, when the Chamber reopens).
The Prime Minister had already anticipated it in the press conference on 29 December: "The reform of the labor market will be the subject of a rapid negotiation because we are not allowed to work calmly". So signals of openness without a doubt, but also of a certain haste, which leaves little room for river negotiations. On the contrary, Monti is clearly making it clear that there will be availability for an agreement but it will have a short deadline.
Il unemployment problem therefore it seems to be destined to create the first tensions of 2012 between the government and the trade unions, which appreciated the phone call from the prime minister but continue to raise the alarm, asking for an extraordinary plan for employment that addresses the risk of an increase in unemployment in the coming months and avoid the growth of social tensions.
“There is a real risk of growing social tensions in the coming months. A risk to be countered with a plan for work, the real emergency”. She says it the leader of the CGIL Susanna Camusso, which adds a forecast: “The recession will have a hard impact on employment and incomes. There is therefore the risk that social conflict will grow with the increase in inequality. The tracks for growth are social and territorial cohesion, but there is a need for strategy and politics. The market is not enough". Then the appeal addressed to the executive: ”Is Professor Monti available to share strategies and policies? If he is, we will do our part as always. Social cohesion requires sharing, equity in sacrifices and benefits. Not blind rigor and increasing inequality".
The secretaries of the other two unions, Cisl and Uil, are on the same line. "The frank and high-profile speech by the president of the republic Napolitano is an encouragement for the union to continue on a reforming line of agreements between the social partners to stimulate growth and employment stability, with wage increases linked to greater productivity”, declares the CISL leader Raffaele Bonanni. Louis Angeletti, secretary of the Uil, also underlined: ”There is the risk of going towards a phase of recession and therefore of job losses. This is the problem to focus on starting from the reduction of taxes on labour, tax evasion and the costs of politics”.
The unions are particularly concerned by the data released by the Ministry of Economic Development, according to which the corporate crisis tables opened at the same Ministry put 30 jobs at immediate risk in the event of a failed positive solution to the ongoing disputes . A negative outcome of these negotiations could then affect 300 workers, taking into account the induced activities of the companies involved in the states of crisis.
The OECD has also taken care of confirming the negative trends. According to the international body 2012 will be a black year for Italy and for the entire euro area. A difficult year also for the banks, hypothesizes the number one of the ECB Mario Draghi, and for growth, as argued by the director of the IMF Christine Lagarde, now certain of a downward revision of the economic growth forecasts for 2012. It will be a year hard as well for consumers and their purchasing power. Inflation, fueled by the public finance maneuvers of the Monti government, will bite wages by 2,4%, according to estimates by the Indis Unioncamere Institute. 2012 will also have a "recessionary picture" for the ABI, while for 2013 the situation will be substantially stagnant.
So the watchword is: to intervene, but in a hurry, as Prime Minister Monti had specified in the press conference of 29 December: "We are not given to work calmly".
