//
you're reading...
Italy, Labour market reform, unemployment

Amended labour reforms head to Italian parliament

CGIL studies new text as Democrat Party declares it ‘an important step forward’ and Communists dismiss reforms as further step towards ‘transforming workers into a commodity’

Italian Premier Mario Monti softened his planned labour reform that would have made it easier for employers to lay off workers on Wednesday.

Responding to opposition from the center-left Democratic Party and the country’s biggest trade union CGIL, the government said that under the amended plan courts will be allowed to order employers to take workers back in cases where companies have falsely claimed economic reasons for cutting jobs

‘In other cases, a severance package is in order,’ said Labor Minister Elsa Fornero. ‘The reform represents a collective net gain,’ she claimed.

The measures included raising payroll taxes on temporary contracts and creating apprenticeships.

Greater numbers of workers will also be eligible for welfare schemes, though benefits will be for shorter periods in some cases.

The new bill was to be sent to in the next few days and Monti said he hoped it would be quickly approved, but it is likely to be some months before the law is passed.

‘We have tried to bear in mind the interest of the whole country and not just one category. The reform clearly adds to job security risks for insiders, but it also boosts prospects for those outside the fortress,’ Fornero said.

The unelected government, which took over from media mogul Silvio Berlusconi in November as speculators taking advantage of the eurozone debt crisis hounded Italy, says it hopes a knock-on effect of the labour reform will be a boost to the country’s sluggish economy.

Monti has come under fire for failing to do enough to boost Italy’s economy, which entered recession in the second half of last year.

The plutocrat former EU Commissioner argues measures his government have taken, including sweeping budget cuts and tax rises, are necessary to reassure financial markets worried about Italy’s public debt mountain, which is equivalent to 120.1 percent of its gross domestic product.

Yet, in an interview in La Stampa newspaper on Wednesday, Monti acknowledged that the austerity measures implemented ‘have and will have a recessionary effect’ and the government ‘cannot ignore social suffering.’

The negative impact on living standards of the crisis and austerity medicine on ordinary Italians was confirmed with new Bank of Italy data released earlier this week that shows incomes of households fell 4% in 2008 and 2009. And in 2011, public sector workers, who make a large chunk of the workforce, saw real wages fall by 2.6%. But not everybody is feeling the pinch though – also published this week by the Bank of Italy was data that showed the 10 richest individuals in the country have as much wealth as 3 million of the poorest.

For Paolo Ferrero, leader of the Communist Refoundation party, the amended employment law proposals are ‘ a cumbersome mechanism that drives workers to accept an economic settlement and offloads the responsibility on judges’, opening the door to a postcode lottery of job security.

‘We move from a right to a monetization and this is a further step in transforming the worker into a commodity. It is very serious that the Democratic Party lend themselves to the destruction of workers’ rights.’

Democrat Party leader Pier Luigi Bersani declared Wednesday night that the amended text was ‘an important step forward.’

The CGIL trade union central had said that the original plans would do nothing to encourage new hiring and would leave large numbers of mainly younger workers stuck on dead-end short term contracts. And it had pledged a campaign of industrial action including a one-day general strike against the proposals.

Wednesday night the union stated it was studying the text.

About revoltingeurope

Writer on Europe's Left, trade union and social movements @tomgilltweets or email [email protected]

Discussion

No comments yet.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Twitter Updates

  • Czech & Romanian governments expected to survive confidence votes Fri, but may soon falter over #austerity. Reuters http://t.co/5Dz6po68 2 hours ago
  • #Italy’s agricultural workers join #rebellion against #Monti’s reforms Revolting #Europe http://t.co/eBD36zVE 2 hours ago
  • #Italy: #Immigrants say treated 'worse than animals' report journalists after visit to detention centre. Ansa http://t.co/sIfQO57r #racism 3 hours ago
  • #Italy: 'Dizzy' rise in families living in 'rough' dwellings as no. triples in 10 years - Istat. Ansa http://t.co/uEbeT5gt #precariat #99% 3 hours ago
  • #Italy- 7.6m monthly #pension less than €1,000, 2.4m <€500-istat 4m on <€500, 6m on <€800-union est. Rassegna.it http://t.co/F0I4o8Yp #99%. 5 hours ago
  • €6bn hidden from #Italy's #taxman by 2,000 evaders in first 4 months of 2012 uncovered by finance police. Ansa. http://t.co/pRSUu8bQ #1% 5 hours ago
  • RT @AthensNewsEU: Golden Dawn (@xryshaygh) leader Nikos Michaloliakos i'view: "I respected his [junta dictator Papadopoulos'] national c ... 5 hours ago
  • RT @AlbertoNardelli: About 85,000 more unemployed youth in #Spain over the last quarter alone, nearly 200,000 over past year, total now ... 5 hours ago
  • #Italy's agricultural workers join #strike action over #Monti's reforms. Revolting Europe. http://t.co/96SLsEUh 6 hours ago
  • RT @AthensNewsEU Private sector wages losing ground http://t.co/7uWMlXC6 #private_sector #debt_crisis #99% #austerity 20 hours ago
Follow @tomgilltweets

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Wealth Inequality in Europe

Get the key facts and figures

RADICAL VOICES

A different take on European issues

Italy’s Healthcare Crisis

Health services are ‘close to collapse’ in Rome, Turin and Naples after years of cuts and privatisation.

NO TO WATER PRIVATISATION

99% of the 167 000 Madrilenos who signed a petition rejected the sell off local water company

Filthy Rich

France's Bernard Arnault of the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) empire is worth $41 billion. Check out Europe's rich list

WORKERS FIGHTING BACK

Arménio Carlos of CGTP led a general strike in Portugal on March 22

FLORENCE’S BUS LUMACA

Workers are on a go-slow over privatisation

Massive Spanish protest

Half a million take to the streets over labour market deregulation

FRENCH FACTORY OCCUPATION

Hundreds of workers occupied the factory of ArcelorMittal in Florange in the north of France

DATA

Anti-social Europe in numbers

RSS Watching Corporate Europe

  • Europe Inc. in crisis - the EU's alliance with big business is a dead-end
  • Les multinationales vampirisent le Sommet de la Terre
  • Das Brüs$el Business – Wer leitet eigentlich die EU?

RSS Hate Crimes in Europe

  • GAY TEEN FORCIBLY TAKEN TO DRUG REHAB CLINIC RELEASED (Russia)
  • POLL: SARKOZY VOTERS WANT PACT WITH FRENCH FAR-RIGHT

RSS Discrimination: legal news

  • Denmark - Revision of the Act establishing the Board of Equal Treatment (PDF 51 kB)
  • Romania - National equality body sanctions the posting “Arbeit Macht Frei” on Facebook by the head of the office of the prefect for the county of Mureş (PDF 56 kB)
  • Austria - Amendment of Penal Code re incitement to hatred (PDF 31 kB)

Workers down tools over PM Monti's attack on labour rights

Archives

Meta