How to find workers who are missing in the countryside for the harvest season and at the same time reclaim the migrant ghettos in times of Covid-19 that swarm in many areas of the South and above all on the outskirts of Foggia, where illegal hiring and mafias draw with both hands ? It is on this terrain that they are fighting a furious battle in the Government and in the majority, which was also echoed in yet another summit last night.
Renziana's combative minister of theAgriculture, Teresa Bellanova, who never forgets that she was a farmhand, insists – as she also explained in a recent interview with FIRSTonline - for regularize migrants and comes to quantify up to 600, extending the amnesty to housekeepers, carers and babysitters. He would like the new rules to enter the April/May decree which should be approved by the Council of Ministers within days. Never Five stars, by the mouth of Minister of Labour, Nunzia Catalfo, do not want to hear about it and, fearing competition from the League which threatens thunder and lightning with Matteo Salvini, argue that "this is not the time to regularize migrants". In the meantime, however, the Covid-19 emergency is pressing on all the agricultural organizations, which insist on providing a solution to the dramatic lack of workers in the countryside, which risks putting not only agriculture in crisis but the food industry itself.
In support of Bellanova and Italia Viva, which places the regularization of migrants in the countryside as a condition for remaining in the Government, the Democratic Party also intervened yesterday, with the Minister of Southern Italy Dario Provenzano, who explicitly declared during the majority meeting that "the Government must be up to the problems" and that, first of all, there is a problem of the dignity of work at stake.
Between the two parties try to mediate the Interior Ministry who, through the minister Luciana Lamorgese, says she is in favor of the regularization of migrants but would like to limit it to 300-400 thousand units.
In the end, as with the other hot issues that have not yet been resolved in the April/May decree, it is very probable that Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will have to intervene, who will try not to displease anyone but will hardly want to give up the presence in the Government of Italia Viva, whose votes in the Senate are decisive. It is not excluded that a fast lane will be attempted to regularize irregular workers in agriculture already in the next decree and a more organic solution to bring out undeclared work in another provision.
Precisely to try to unblock the decree process, the Government is meeting with the social partners. The first meeting took place with Confindustria and Ance (however, both the president of the industrialists, Carlo Bonomi, and the Premier, Giuseppe Conte were absent). During the videoconference with the ministers Gualtieri, Catalfo and Patuanelli, the managing director of Confindustria, Marcella Panucci reiterated that Italian companies, to overcome this crisis, need compensation and not loans. The requests made by the association also include the suspension of tax payments until the end of 2020 and the extension of the terms set for the repayment of guaranteed loans to companies (today they are six years). Finally, Confindustria rejected the hypothesis of reducing the working hours of employees, for the same salary. During the day, the Government will also meet representatives of the agriculture and food sectors.
(Last update: 15.23 pm on 6 May)
