After receiving the contributions of former trade unionists of yesteryear in search of a resurrection (the "grillini" have become, in politics, the philosopher's stone of notoriety in the sense that the people they value are resurrected from the graves in which they rested in peace and led to pontificate on TV) the M5S has begun to publish its programmatic points, including those on work. To better comment on the elaborate, we have taken the liberty (and the audacity) to publish it, even at the cost of carrying out - albeit indirectly - a propaganda action for which we will ask the Almighty for forgiveness. The pentastellato document is organized as follows: a brief introduction that identifies the problem, summarily explains its contents and indicates the critical reasons to be corrected. Then comes the "programmatic point" with the proposals, aimed at removing the vices and defects of the rules and practices now in force. Our observations will also follow this approach.
Movimento 5 Stelle – Work programme
FREE TRADE UNION REPRESENTATION
In terms of representation in the workplace, today it is not possible for a new union list to present itself in the elections of the RSA (company union representatives) within companies with over 15 employees, both public and private. The RSA can only be nominated by the previous organizations, perhaps not even elected. Or, if elected, only from lists of those who were already present, i.e. trade unions and organizations that have already signed contracts. This system, the result of article 19 of the Workers' Statute, as modified inappropriately by a referendum in 1995, blocks any union renewal and above all gives companies the power to decide which are the "good" and "bad" unions, in relation to the relationship they maintain with the employer. Do you remember the Fiom-Fiat clash a few years ago? There was then a sentence of the Constitutional Court, in July 2013, which changed the picture. But like so many other times, the Consulta was not in the least taken into consideration either by the political forces or by the large confederal trade unions. Workers, all workers, must be able to elect their representatives, in complete freedom and without constraints. All must be voters and eligible. Just as required by our Constitutional Charter.
PROGRAMMATIC POINT
The 5 Star Movement wants to guarantee all workers the right to be able to choose their union representatives and to be elected, with an open competition between all acronyms, regardless of having signed the agreements with the counterparts. Finally, it is a matter of fully applying article 39 of the Constitution on free trade union initiative.
COMMENT
Apart from the somewhat approximate and bogus reconstruction of the article 19 of the Articles of Association (the 1995 referendum was intended precisely to disengage the recognition of trade union representativeness and therefore of trade union viability in the company, from being signatories to national contracts, limiting it to that of the contracts applied in the company); apart from that the Consulta with an "innovative" sentence established that "signing" is equivalent to "actively taking part in the negotiations" even without adhering to the conclusions; the instigator of this measure (Giorgio Cremaschi) realized that its extreme liberalization would also be intended for associations that do everything in the company except trade union activities, given that after the Court's sentence, a trade union is representative even if did you just participate in the negotiations? The Constitutional sentence n.231 of 2013 dictated the basic criteria for the recognition of the "greater representativeness" in the light of the effects of the 1995 referendum. In practice, if we limit ourselves to observing the function of legal institutions and not their formal discipline , we could argue that the quoted sentence has fished out the question which in 1995 was rejected by the voters and which proposed what Cremaschi theorized and taken up again in the programmatic point. Article 39 of the Constitution establishes in its first paragraph that "trade union organization is free": which does not mean that it automatically has access to the rights envisaged by the Statute, the recognition of which is carried out on the basis of minimally selective criteria.
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UNIONS WITHOUT PRIVILEGES
Service fees, bilateral entities, indirect corporate funding, even sponsorships. Today the major trade union organizations are standing by means of a multiplicity of tools which often generates opacity and takes away freedom of action from the workers' acronyms, distancing them from the authentic needs of the members. The resources must reach the union exclusively through the quotas of the members, because union activity must be based only on their consent and on the defense of the workers' interests.
Furthermore, the employee and the pensioner must be free to cancel a trade union card that is truly renewable: there must no longer be memberships that are perpetuated forever only on the basis of the principle of tacit consent. After a certain number of years, membership in a given trade union must be subject to explicit assent. Cafés and Patronati must also be brought under real public control, in relation to the efficiency and quality of the service provided. While union permits and secondments must be used for the effective presence and activity in the workplace from which one comes and not for covering other roles in other sectors.
Finally, far too many ex-trade unionists have made a career in Parliament, in political parties, in government or thanks to positions of power in the management of large companies: a mixture that needs to be stopped. In short, the large trade union must be helped to debureaucratize itself, pruning off useless privileges to bring it back to its essential function: the defense of work.
PROGRAMMATIC POINT
The M5s wants to cut the anachronistic privileges which, within the trade union system, have contributed to creating "caste" situations, completely detached from the changing reality of work.
COMMENT
It will be the trade unions that will reply to these criticisms which describe a pathological use/abuse of trade union rights. Like other times, the M5S shoots in the crowd in the awareness of being able to hit some target. It is true, in fact, that voluntary activism has practically disappeared in trade union action. Most union time is paid, through furloughs or whatever. Furthermore, the consultants of the "grillini" have forgotten another "privilege" enjoyed only by trade unionists on leave (pursuant to law no. 300/1970): in addition to retaining their jobs, as is right, their social security contributions are figurative and placing charge of the relative management. As if being a trade unionist were a public service. This used to be a treatment reserved even for those elected to public office, but it has now ceased.
In any case, this programmatic point advocates something that not even the centre-right governments had dared to think about: attacking the trade unions on an economic level, through the introduction of a criterion of temporariness of the proxies through which membership fees are collected. Moreover, this rule is no longer supported (as had happened until the 1995 referendum) by a law (the Statute, in fact), but by a contractual rule that the employers' associations have never questioned, even if after the repeal by referendum they could have done so. The case of withholdings, by means of delegation, on pensions is different, the mechanism of which could be changed – and made subject to periodic verification – through an act of government guidance to INPS. As for the career of trade unionists in Parliament, in the parties, in the government, at the M5S, they did not explain that the statutes of the main trade unions provide for incompatibility with political and elective offices already at the time of candidacy.
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MORE DEMOCRACY IN THE WORKPLACE
The "German co-management" (Mit-Bestimmung) of which there is much talk is the system which, above all in Germany, regulates industrial relations and provides for the direct participation of employees in the company's decision-making processes on issues such as organisation, quality of work or other strategic choices. More generally, in truth, there may be different tools for consultation, codecision or in any case for disintermediation and involvement of workers in the life of the company. Their direct opinion can be requested through proposals and suggestions that are somehow binding for the management. Or “improvement groups” can be envisaged on purely organizational or working-time issues. Or again, in a more organic way, representations can be brought into play that enter directly into the functioning of the company's administrative, management or supervisory boards, possibly also providing for forms of profit-sharing for the workers, an institution which it could almost be defined as contractual in nature. The goal is to increase the synergies between the productive parts, with a view to an overall strengthening of the company and the pursuit of increasingly shared objectives.
PROGRAMMATIC POINT
The M5S will encourage the involvement of workers in the elaboration of strategies, in the production organization and, in general, in the decision-making processes of their company.
COMMENT
Remember which model you are referring to. In 1976, the government of the Social Democrat Helmut Schmidt approved, with broad political consensus, the reform that introduced the principle of co-management (Mitbestimmung) in Germany. The management of German companies was entrusted to two bodies: an Executive Council (Vorstand) and a Supervisory Council (Aufsichtsrat). Workers have the right to elect half of the representatives of the Supervisory Board. The remaining half and the President are elected by the Shareholders' Meeting. Formally they are independent bodies from the union, and have direct responsibilities in personnel management: recruitment, dismissal, temporary contracts and flexibility of individual hours. To be generous, it could be argued that in this programmatic point there is a certain rate of reformism, even if the experiences that, with regard to worker participation, have been made in Italy are completely ignored (starting from the so-called first part of the ). In our experience, however, the role of the union remains central, in continuity with the model of representation that has prevailed in our country. In the "grillina" proposal - also considering the negative judgment on the union referred to in the previous point - the form of worker participation adds grist to the mill of "disintermediation". Because this is the spirit of which it is imbued.
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REDUCTION OF WORKING HOURS
We need to get out of a misunderstanding: working more hours doesn't necessarily mean being more productive. On the contrary. It is the quality of the work (to be improved through investments in research, development and training) that increases competitiveness and added value, fundamental ingredients for an economy like the Italian one. Rather, in the face of a probable overall reduction in the stock of hours worked due to the impacts on production processes of technological advancement, robotics, information technology and globalization, a different, more inclusive distribution of this same stock should be encouraged , also by encouraging long part-time relationships and discouraging, on the contrary, overtime.
The European countries where people work the least are the rich ones in Northern Europe, while those where they work the most are the Eastern and Southern countries. A Greek works 50% more than a German, just to give an example . The costs for the State to initiate the reduction of working hours are generally very limited. In France, the 35 hours cost around one billion a year, while in Italy we are spending at least 18 billion in three years for the tax relief of new hires with the "Jobs act", with one of the worst effects on employment in all of Europe.
Technologies improve the productivity and balance sheet margins of companies that will have to rethink their production organisation. Otherwise the crisis of demand and overproduction will inevitably worsen.
PROGRAMMATIC POINT
The M5S will encourage production reorganization processes, reducing working hours below 40 hours per week. We will encourage part-time work, we will also facilitate defensive and expansive solidarity contracts, finally strengthening the leave system.
COMMENT
Back to the old adage "work less, work all"? Just when in France Emmanuel Macron proposes to cancel the mirage of the 35-hour week? First of all, it will be necessary to warn the M5S that collective agreements have already taken steps to reduce "working hours below 40 hours per week". As for the other tools, these are actions that have already been envisaged for some time and most recently remodeled by the Jobs Act and the implementing decrees. A little bit if you want to face the scenario described in the introductory part.
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MORE FLEXIBLE ACCESS TO RETIREMENT
The "Fornero" pension reform has suddenly raised the thresholds for access to the old-age pension, hurling hundreds of thousands of "elderly" workers into a limbo of despair and generating the surreal (and shameful) category of "displaced persons". At the same time, entire generations of young people continue to be cut off from the world of work for many years, with negative repercussions for private companies and public administrations.
The technical and cultural error made by governments that insist on raising the bar of the age to be reached for retirement is evident: in this way they think they can make a social security system sustainable which, in reality, with the mechanism the so-called "pay-as-you-go" scheme, can only be sustained if there is quality work for the active population and adequate contributions payments that are used to pay today's pensions (a system that costs around 270 billion). If young people don't work today, they cannot support today's retirees.
It is therefore necessary to allow workers to choose with more freedom, within certain limits, the age and professional seniority threshold to be achieved before accessing retirement. Perhaps, by encouraging the generational relay as a tool to reduce the working hours of the worker close to retirement, in the face of the hiring of young people, in order to promote youth employment and accompany older workers towards farewell to the profession, guaranteeing a transition of knowledge and experience across generations. Finally, we need to extend the social security protections of the so-called "weary" jobs to other onerous jobs and guarantee access to facilitated retirement for the so-called "precocious".
PROGRAMMATIC POINT
The M5S will increase the freedom of workers to decide, within certain thresholds and limits, the level of contribution (seniority) and the age at which they leave work, also through the "generational relay" mechanism. We will extend the social security protections of the so-called "weary" jobs to categories not included today and we will take into account the needs of the so-called "precocious".
COMMENT
The usual music. But all in all, in the matter of pensions, the pentastellati are more realistic and less demagogic than other populist political forces. Apart from the ritual homage to the flexibility of retirement, the point talks about the protection of strenuous jobs and taking into account the needs of the precocious: grounds already beaten in the 2017 budget law. As for the generational relay, we have just emerged from another sensational bankruptcy: part-time work/retirement upon reaching the age of 63 envisaged in the previous budget law then regulated by a subsequent decree. In fact, INPS has denounced that the applications accepted to take advantage of the subsidized part-time scheme have been (since June last year) only two hundred against the thirty thousand envisaged by the Government.
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FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
It is undoubtedly a program "heard" from many quarters, but characterized by very critical analyzes which eventually plan on cautious and generic, often repetitive proposals of already known solutions, tested (more or less successfully, almost always unsuccessfully) in other times and by other governments. Proposals that do not intend to scare anyone. Perhaps we are only in the preparation phase of the programme. And we must therefore expect further developments in the months that separate us from the elections. It is strange, however, that the M5S is preparing for an electoral competition without "howls in the night". Suffice it to note that not a single word is said about the "damned" gold pensions, a subject where it is all the easier to be shared the more it is possible to foment hatred and the desire to be pilloried.
