Difficult to talk about unions in Italy without entering politics. And since the CGIL has decided to focus everything on five referendum questions (8 and 9 June) which seem more a counts within the left than a challenge on the world of work the overlap of the roles has heard. It is therefore impossible not to start from here also with Daniela Fumarola, recently secretary of the CISL, who in these days has been called to take sides on the proposals that tend to eliminate the Jobs Act and modify the rules on citizenship to foreigners.
Secretary, what will you vote?
«Referendum at work are a wrong tool on the merits and methods because they do not solve the issues that are claimed to face. Article 18 does not restore but rather the protections are made to the Monti-Fornero law, reducing the number of allowances recognized to the worker in the event of dismissal “.
Wouldn’t it be logical to also make an invitation to abstention given the centrality of the themes touched by the campaign?
«The CISL does not make a campaign pro or against the questions and we do not invite abstentionism. This climate of stadium fans must be defused. The complex problems of today’s labor market require new protections, not improbable returns to the past. They are critical of mainly qualitative, not quantitative order. The point is to give quality, stability and safety to employment ».
Beautiful words, how do you do it?
“The keystone is that of training, skills, a work system to be moved on higher levels of added value through innovation, of a bargaining drop on people, able to redistribute the wealth on higher wages and more flexible and lighter times”.
You say that it does not want to politicize the referendums, but if it is Landini himself who makes it clear that the achievement of the quorum is impossible and that the goal is to achieve 12 million votes to say that more preferences than Meloni have, what remains if not a political question?
«The referendum is a polarizing tool of his. A merely abrogative tool, with which we risk creating regulatory vulnus and which cannot in any way create an organic reform for the good government of the labor market. The divisive push does not benefit anyone, and risks transforming into a sensational own goal especially on the theme of citizenship. The current law must be modified and improved in Parliament, with a reform that does not leave holes and inconsistencies, towards forms of ius scholae and concessions for access to citizenship, especially for the second generations. It is an action that must be done seriously, with an approach also participated by the social partners ».
Let’s change topic. Your law on workers’ participation in the management of companies has passed. A turning point. The CGIL and part of the Democratic Party say it was watered down …
«Absolutely not true. Our law has maintained its physiognomy, with the recognition of the four forms of participation: organizational, management, economic-financial and consultative. It is a real turning point in industrial relationships. Collective bargaining is enhanced as a fundamental lever for participatory agreements built from below, in the workplace, encouraged by economic incentives fueled by a fund dedicated to participation. It is very curious, then, the position of those who today are paladin of the original text after introducing 30 amendments to the Chamber that would have distorted the system. “
The real theme of work in Italy is that linked to wages. How does her predecessor be contrary to the minimum salary too?
«We do not need minimums in the Official Gazette established from time to time by politics. The patch would be worse than the hole, with thousands of companies that would come out of the bargaining to stand at the minimum legal threshold. Two risks: compression of middle wages and black explosion in the intensive labour band. The challenge is another: in a country like ours, where the bargaining covers 98% of the work, the existing contracts must be strengthened, renew them at the expiry and not after ten years as happens in some sector. We must enhance the decentralized and territorial decentralized bargaining, also extending it to the sectors in which it is missing. And then respond to the wounds that determine most of the poor work in Italy: the involuntary part time, the spurious cooperatives and the false autonomous work, the black and gray work. Areas in which the minimum salary does not intervene in any way ».
The League proposes a mini return to the escalator: re -evaluation in part of the wages for inflation on an annual basis, therefore not hooked to the contract renewal. Do you agree?
«It is right to place the theme of the increase in wages, but the question cannot be addressed with a simple pen tray in the Official Gazette. It applies to the minimum salary, which crushes the wages at the bottom. And it also applies to any form of automatism, which would set fire to inflation by triggering a run between wages and prices. It is no coincidence that we were released in the early nineties. The salary is not an independent variable of the economy, but an element to be connected to productivity and its good distribution through tax and bargaining. For this reason, an expansive income policy must be carried out that encourages participation and second -level bargaining, lowers the tax load on the average class, speculation contrasts on prices and rates “.
The same League also provides for a sort of wage mini cages on result prizes, therefore on second level bargaining. More concessions to those who live in the city rather than in the suburbs. What do you think?
“Second level bargaining must be extended and deducted in full in all sectors, even in the public employment, because it is in companies and workplaces that you must almost in a tailored way to contract to grasp the specificities of the territories, to meet the flexibility needs of the times, reconcile family and work, encourage smart working. There are no new laws. We need more participation, more sharing in the choices, more protagonism of workers ».
There was a great controversy over the renewal of the contracts of the PA. The CGIL opposes the proposal of the ARA and the government that has put 20 billion on the plate, which translate into average increases from 150 euros gross per month for the 3 million and passes by public employees. Some contracts were signed only thanks to your push. Why do Landini and bombers oppose? Do they do politics here too?
«We should ask them. We consider a serious mistake this “melina” on public contracts. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of workers from municipalities and regions, nurses and health personnel who paid a very high price during the Covid years. Never as on this occasion many resources have been allocated to renew public contracts. Blocking the renewal means denying wage increases, backlogs and the revaluation of the allowances to many workers. In the past, the same unions that now have obstructionism have signed contracts well below the inflationary levels and very far from the increases proposed in this round. Stall the renewals on the skin of the workers by camping benkeeper topics is irresponsible ».
Who won in the vote for the elections of the PA delegates? The CGIL and UIL shout for success.
“The CISL continues to be far the first union in terms of members and representativeness in almost all public sectors”.
In your opinion, should the government guarantee increases by law at this point?
“It is not the solution that we hope because it would bring union relations back in time, when the increases of public employees settled in the rooms of the ministers on duty, without any link with productivity, with the verified needs, professional careers, training, results achieved, protections for motherhood, holidays, diseases, welfare. A contract is not only constituted by the economic part which is however important ».
Do you think the contracts can be unlocked? Could CGIL and UIL change your mind?
«I wish me. Indeed, I address the categories an appeal to responsibility. We work together immediately to give workers the right increases and the right protections ».
How do negotiations proceed with the government in view of the next measures especially on the tax side?
«In the positive meeting we had with Meloni on May 8 we did not enter the merits, but it is important that the Prime Minister told us that it is a first step of a structural path. Safety at work must become one of the pieces of a great pact of responsibility between government and social partners, who would allow not only to increase wages and productivity, but also to invest in training and innovation, to build a new industrial policy, deal with the theme of health, pensions, income policy and a more fair tax authorities. Without remedies, but with a real fight against evasion ».
What does it respond to those who say that CISL remains too flattened on the executive positions?
“Those who say it do it in an instrumental way and do not know the history of the CISL who has always dialogue with all governments, independently assessed the choices, protesting when it was appropriate to do it, without ever discounts”.
