As with all labor legislation, the "minimum wage", linguistic relative of the "Jobs Act", it is not a tool from which to expect miracles but simply (which should not be underestimated) a greater protection of the weakest groups of workers.
The recent proposal of Matteo Renzi to fix the legal minimum wage at 9-10 euros per hour will not meet the enthusiasm of the union which fears being delegitimized, but which has never really set itself the objective of implementing article 39 of the Constitution which, giving the status of law to the contracts signed jointly by the social partners representing the majority of members, it would eliminate anomalous contracts and make the legal minimum wage objectively useless.
The union has relied on the jurisprudential practice, which for many years has worked very well, of equate the fair wage referred to in Article 36 of the Constitution to the national contractual minimums but in a regime of substantial bargaining monopoly.
The spread of a significant number of contracts, and not all of them "pirated", induced by the multiplication of national company agreements or between trade union associations of workers and companies different from the historical ones, has produced a sort of contractual competition that pushes companies to choose the most convenient contract. Added to this is the submerged world of the black that characterizes some sectors such as seasonal agricultural work and construction, for which the minimum wage can be useful, but not decisive.
In fact, the traditional contractual formula today does not guarantee everywhere the right remuneration as sanctioned by the Constitution. The proposal that the secretary of the PD has relaunched is a partial substitute for article 39, which (like articles 40 and 46) continues to be considered by the social partners as radioactive material (obviously also the most beautiful constitution in the world" only pleases in the programmatic declarations) but, accompanied by some reflections, would give a positive contribution to the protection of the weakest workers.
First of all, the value indicated by Renzi for the national minimum hourly wage threshold (9-10 euro), which corresponds more or less to the value of the voucher, would be adequate for the economically strong realities but would become a strain for the weaker areas and would turn into a cry of Manzoni's memory. A lower value would certainly be effective for less developed realities and sectors but, with a few exceptions, would not have much use in the rest of the country.
From a theoretical point of view the value of the minimum wage should be articulated according to the actual wages, by region or by aggregates of regions. This study would be appropriate but, given the risk of giving rise to endless discussions, it would be better to start with a realistic value of the minimum hourly wage, even if lower than the values indicated by the secretary of the PD, to evaluate its impact on the realities of territories and more concretely concerned sectors and subsequently improve the effectiveness of the tool in general terms.
