The squeeze on voucher is now one step away: it remains to be clarified only if good jobs will also be prohibited for micro-enterprises, which are very numerous in Italy and make excessive use of tickets. Once the square is found on this point, the government could carry out the reform by decree, so as to shorten the time and avoid the referendum promoted by the CGIL, accepting the requests. The general framework is now clear: the aim is to restore the old rules introduced by the Biagi law.
Here are the main points of the voucher counter-reform:
1) Job vouchers will once again be usable almost exclusively by families for the payment of occasional services (carers, babysitters, housekeepers, gardening jobs). The concept of "occasionalism" was canceled in 2013 by former minister Enrico Giovannini.
2) Consequently, companies will no longer be able to use vouchers, in any sector, with an (almost) complete cancellation of the liberalization carried out in 2012 by the Fornero reform.
3) However, they could be excluded from the ban micro-enterprisesi.e. single entrepreneurs or those with only one employee. This is not a detail: there are 2 million and 600 thousand Italian micro-enterprises (Istat data), ie 60% of the total. Authorizing them to use the vouchers would in all likelihood mean displeasing the CGIL and failing to avoid the referendum. But a compromise could be found by introducing, only for nano-companies, even stricter limits on the use of job vouchers.
4) Other exemptions should cover agriculture, with the ceilings already foreseen of 2-5 thousand euros, but only to allow the harvest and the collection of seasonal products for pensioners and students.
5) The maximum income ceiling that can be received with the vouchers will be reported from 7 thousand to 5 thousand euros, as it was before the Jobs Act.
6) The use of vouchers will be strictly excluded in public administration, with the exception of extraordinary cases such as solidarity initiatives, calamities, emergencies and salaries paid by small Municipalities to the unemployed or the disabled engaged in operations of public utility.
The government also aims to quickly close the agreement on new procurement rules, at the center of the second referendum promoted by the CGIL. “In this case I propose a return to 2003 – said the president of the Labor Commission of the Chamber Cesare Damiano – restoring joint responsibility for the purposes of wages and compliance with contractual and social security standards in favor of the last worker engaged in the subcontracting chain as well ”.
Also in this case, all the requests of the CGIL would be accepted and consequently the referendum could be cancelled. Of course, the last word will in any case belong to the union, which - when questioned by the Cassation - should take a step back on the consultation for which it has collected a million signatures and called a national demonstration in Piazza del Popolo in Rome for the 8 April.
