Unexpected proposal that of the Secretary of UILM, Rocco Palombella, who launches the idea of a agreement between the Union, Confindustria and the Government alternative to the exchange of artillery shells which we have witnessed in recent times. Palombella proposes an exchange in which the Union renounces the renewal of the CCNL (at least for the economic part), the Government extends the ban on dismissal (and therefore the CIG), Confindustria renounces to fire but does not pay national wage increases.
A concerted hypothesis that could unblock an Industrial Relations system that seems to be jammed by referring to a methodology that has produced very positive results in times of crisis. Each party pays a price but gets a guarantee. However Palombella's proposal, to get out of the dimension of the political signal, needs a better definition and more effective implementation methods.
First of all, it is quite clear that three years of layoffs are very difficult to sustain. First of all for businesses, which for three years could not intervene on the workforce to renew or restructure, with inevitable side effects, such as the slowdown in investments, especially innovative ones. It goes without saying that such a block would lead to a stagnation of new hiresespecially to the detriment of young people.
But in addition to this we must take into consideration the costs of the operation: it is clear that the "unlicensed" should stay in the CIG, and it is equally clear that the respective companies could not be called upon to contribute to the costs, just as it is evident that the coverage of the contribution to the ordinary CIG (but also extraordinary, if we want to be precise) would be marginal if not nil. The cost would therefore be entirely borne by the State. Difficult to quantify it, but we can try: in January we estimate that the terminations, between the physiological ones blocked in 2020 and those that will be caused by crises or business failures linked to the Covid lockdown, should be around 1 million.
In the following two years physiological layoffs could increase frozen, but some of them could resign and/or retire. So we can imagine that in the three years the stock of frozen layoffs could remain around 1 million, or a little more. The costs of the CIG should average around 1 billion/month (1000 euros for one million) to which, in the future, almost 40% of notional contributions must be added. For three years we are talking about 39 billion (13 months for 3 years) plus the usual figurative contributions. Approximately 50 billion, to which must be added the other income support interventions that may become necessary in the meantime.
Difficult to manage for a country that already spent an extra 2020 billion on income support in 30 and will be able to count on only 27 billion from the SURE Fund. However, if we imagine that the freeze on layoffs is valid for only one year, the committed expenditure will be 13 billion. On the other hand, there will be no expense load for NASPI. Of course, this last expense will have to be faced after 12 months. But it would avoid dragging on for another 24 months.
But the decisive differences, which correspond to as many conditions, would be two. The first should consist in the fact that this manpower "reservoir" becomes the object of Active Policies aimed at retraining and re-employment/employability. To this end, resources from SURE, the redeployment allowance, the European Social Fund should be used (also involving the Regions), calling on private and public entities to operate on equal terms, with economic recognition in the face of positive employment outcomes. The joint effort of the Government and the Social Partners should remove this stock of substantial unemployed, unlocking the Industrial Relations system.
The second is the temporary freezing of national bargaining it should open the space for one-off bargaining at company level, in which verifiable and negotiable parameters linked to productivity and results can be asserted. Ultimately: an interesting and constructive hypothesis worth discussing.
