In an editorial in La Repubblica, the Director Maurizio Molinari finds a way to link sovereignty to legal minimum wage, in the sense that, in his opinion, the Government's opposition to the SMIC (minimum wage for inter-professional growth) is an expression of sovereignty because this institute is in force in 21 of the 27 European countries. This observation could be correctly reversed as follows: in the 21 countries where the legal minimum wage is in force, the national category bargaining, which is the backbone of Italy's industrial relations system.
Legal minimum wage and collective bargaining: how they affect
It is no coincidence that in countries where there is a legal minimum wage, with very few exceptions (Belgium and France), bargaining coverage is less than 80% of workers; on the contrary, countries without a legal minimum wage have coverage rates above 80% (except Cyprus). Member States with a collective bargaining coverage rate above 70 % show a smaller proportion of low-wage workers.
So much so that the European directive 2022/2041 of 19 October 2022, also adopted in Italy, does not contain any obligation to introduce a legal minimum wage for the six countries, including ours, which do not provide for it in their legislation. Indeed – as Emmanuele Massagli recalled in Tempi – it is the European Union itself that clarifies that the legal minimum wage is not a guarantee of recognition of a protective minimum wage (“fair”, according to article 36 of our Constitution). The 2020 data (the latest available) show that only in three countries in the European Union is the level of the legal minimum wage considered adequate, meaning by this term, equal to at least 60 per cent of the median gross wage or 50 per cent of the average wage in each country.
Collective bargaining and pirate contracts: the case of Italy
According to the most recent assessments, collective bargaining in Italy covers 97% of employees. To justify the introduction of the SMIC (Minimum wage for interprofessional growth) the so-called are called into question pirate contracts, an expanding phenomenon of social dumping, but overestimated because it concerns a clear minority of workers; furthermore, these contracts should not necessarily be confused with those stipulated by minor trade unions, not represented in the Cnel. Observing the numbers – even if there isn't a clear picture that should be built before slipping into the constraints of a law – there are 12 million workers covered by contracts stipulated by the CGIL, CISL and UIL; approximately 330 thousand from contracts attributable to minor trade unions; 30 thousand subjects to the halter of pirate contracts.
What are Pirate Contracts
The typology of these contracts is usually the following: a group of companies in a given territory stipulate contracts which they define as "national" with shell organizations and apply them to their employees through the provisions of article 19 of the Statute of workers, as crippled by an unfortunate 1995 referendum, promoted by the political and trade union left always ready to cut the branch on which it sits. It is absurd – we will see why – to establish a ''universal'' minimum hourly wage to deal with these situations, when the union initiative, the administrative action of the bodies in charge and above all the recourse to consolidated jurisprudence which identifies the remuneration would be sufficient ' 'proportionate'' and ''sufficient'' – referred to in article 36 of the Constitution – in the minimum tables of the most important collective agreements.
Minimum wage: a reissue of the sliding scale
It is in reality that the legal minimum wage and the national category bargaining end up performing the same function, at least in terms of pay, especially since the gross amount of 9 euros per hour would be equal to 87% of the median wage and therefore very limited spaces would remain for bargaining, especially since the Smic would work as a reissue of the ''escalator'' of bad memory. The periodic review of the legal minimum wage would condition the renewals of the contracts, also because the demand for an ope legis adjustment, perhaps in the budget law (where a fund is envisaged to help companies bear the higher costs) would become for the unions - that of pressure on politics – the easiest path to follow compared to negotiating with the counterparts. Especially in a context of sustained inflation. At his time, after theAgnelli-Lama agreement on the single point of the 1975 sliding scale – as Pierre Carniti wrote – ''the incidence on the increase in nominal wages, due to the contingency allowance, went from 49,6% in 1974 to 87,2% in 1980' '.
In essence, the automatism of the ''escalator'' ended up questioning and abusively occupying the union's very role as ''salary authority''. It soon became clear that the real winner of that historic negotiation (which shattered the professional frameworks) was not Luciano Lama, but the lawyer par excellence. The unions remained entangled in that trap until 1992, and only found a way out with the following year's protocol.
The minimum wage opens the door to decentralized bargaining
It is no coincidence that Confindustria has not distanced itself, with determination, from opposition law proposal. If the national contractual minimums started to rise on the Smic freight elevator, it is evident that the effective exchange between companies and workers would move to the level of decentralized and proximity bargaining. A certainly desirable change also because it would favor the increase in productivity which is now not a reliable reference – because there is no average productivity attributable to a sector – in the dynamics of the negotiation for the renewal of national contracts.
But a production structure like ours, with millions of small businesses, could it handle such a sharp turn? At this point in the union mystique another mirage is revealed: the representation law which should allow the erga omnes application of the contracts signed by the comparatively most representative organizations (no one has ever been able to clarify the meaning of this definition). But if the social partners have not even managed to get to the bottom of the Consolidated law on representation of 2019, which although remained within the scope of private bargaining, delude themselves that they can manage a law that would greatly complicate the problems and procedures in the context of audiences where entrepreneurial and trade union associations - albeit expressing one of the highest rates high in the OECD – would, however, only concern minorities both in terms of members and those elected in the RSU. If you have never implemented thearticle 39 of the Constitution and if a law on the subject has never been approved there are reasons, ignoring which one ends up being out of touch with reality.
