Complex theme that of minimum salary and productivity.
On the minimum wage it is necessary to decide who fixes it, with what criteria, the starting value and, last but not least, how it changes over time. Let's say the government sets it.
Let's say that the starting value could, given the context, be not too different from the reference of 1200 euros per month.
Minimum wage and productivity: hook it up to the national collective bargaining agreement
The criterion, which also determines the dynamics, should however respect the role of collective bargaining. We know that this is a jungle: almost a thousand CCNL deposited with CNEL, but less than 10 are applied to more than half of the employees.
Finding a formula that says that the minimum wage is equal to X per cent of the average of the median tabular wages of these few contracts, with X appropriate, would give 1200 euros (or whatever it will be) and would introduce a healthy adjustment mechanism, compatible with growth of the Italian economy and would displace many "smart" or in any case not tolerable collective bargaining contracts in a civilized country, maintaining the centrality of collective bargaining.
Minimum wage: alone is not enough, more is needed for productivity
Of course, the minimum wage alone is not enough. Indeed, it could be counterproductive. There are those who are forced into free overtime, false self-employment, undeclared work.
The introduction of the minimum wage, when it will be, in the absence of control measures it will only move the middle world into the submerged.
Chapter to itself the theme of cleaners and carers that with 700 jobs and 800 undeclared jobs represent around 10 percent of employment: when will it be possible to deduct the cost of labor for these workers from the employer's income, giving them real dignity?
On the relationship between the minimum wage and productivity I would say that the correlation is low. Wages in Italy have increased little compared to other countries because the gross domestic product has increased almost nothing in 20 years. And if productivity doesn't increase, wages don't increase.
But this is true on average. On the low Italian productivity, which obviously correlates to low wages, the determining factors are many but it is certain that one of the most important is in the sectoral and even more dimensional structure of the Italian economy.
In Italy, manufacturing and non-manufacturing companies with a high technological and innovation impact weigh less than in other countries. These, however, are the ones that raise average productivity directly but also indirectly.
And then there are too many micro enterprises, not enough small ones, few medium-sized ones and very few large ones. This was in fact the choice of Italian politics for at least twenty years (but perhaps many more) and this is the result.
In Cupertino, even the barman earns 40 percent more than his colleague in New York…..but in Italy I still don't see any Apples, not even an Annurca.
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