Rejected. The CNEL confirmed its no to the legal minimum wage, with a majority vote that highlighted the internal rift. Both the unions and the councilors appointed by the President of the Republic were divided: 39 yes and 15 no out of 54 voters, this is the outcome of the vote on the final document of the National Council for Economy and Labour, the institutional body appointed by the government of lead the way on the controversial legal minimum wage. The president of the CNEL Renato Brunetta handed the document into the hands of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Thursday evening.
Brunetta: the minimum wage already exists, it's the collective agreements
The document approved by a very large majority, states Brunetta, "identifies a toolbox to manage, in an articulated and targeted way, the various critical issues of the poor work and minimum wages adequate for all workers (not just employees and not just the lowest levels of the contractual classification scales), which certainly cannot be resolved through simplistic solutions that are unable to deal with reality and the needs of the people in flesh and bone". And Meloni follows: “The minimum wage is not the right tool to combat poor work. From the CNEL's technical analysis it emerges that theItaly respects the parameters of the EU directive, given that collective bargaining covers 95% of private workers. But as soon as possible we will make an organic intervention on wages."
Legal minimum wage: the battle moves to Parliament
The vote, says Brunetta, "has highlighted not the split in the CNEL but that of the unions". CGIL and UIL voted against the document, while CISL and UIL voted in favor. There was also division among the expert economists appointed by the Quirinale. Marcella Mallen, Enrica Morlicchio, Ivana Pais, Alessandro Rosina and Valeria Termini had asked to integrate the final text - assembled by labor law expert Michele Tiraboschi, also an expert advisor to Mattarella - with a experimentation of the minimum wage for some categories of fragile workers, such as women, young people and immigrants. The no from the couple of experts appointed by Palazzo Chigi was obvious: Francesco Rotondi and Roberto Zazza.
The battle over the minimum wage now moves to Parliament, but the outcome now seems to be sealed. The opposition wants to resume examining the Pd-M5S-Action-Avs bill on 9 euros in the chamber but the majority intends to ask for it to be referred to the commission. A postponement that would decree his definitive death.
