Italian workers strike against Renzi’s Jobs Act

News

This Friday, two of Italy’s biggest national trade union centres, CGIL (the Italian General Confederation of Labour) and UIL, (the Italian General Union of Labour) will go on strike against the labour reforms being implemented by the government of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

The main point of contention is Renzi’s Jobs Act, a raft of reforms passed by the Senate on 3 December, designed to overhaul the country’s labour market and make the hiring and firing workers easier.

Unions are also protesting against the Stability Law, a €36 billion budget package which will introduce massive public spending cuts, particularly in the education and health sectors, without – say the unions – allowing for the investments needed to tackle the country’s youth unemployment crisis (43.3 per cent in October 2014).

The Jobs Act will introduce measures to reduce the number of short-term contracts, redefine the size of companies, introduce growing protections for newly-hired workers depending on the length of service, and most controversial of all, changes to Article 18 of the Workers’ Statute which offers financial compensation to those unfairly dismissed from their work.

CGIL leader Susanna Camusso was quoted by the Italian news agency Ansa accusing the Renzi government is “taking its platform from Confindustria,” which represents Italy’s largest industrial employers.

Camusso is also quoted as saying: “Yes, there is a need to change the (1970 Workers’) Statute, but only in order to expand the rights and protections now reserved to those with permanent full-time contracts to all other forms of labour.”

The Renzi government says the reforms will simplify the country’s labour market and tackle the discrepancies between the small number of protected workers and the swathes of unprotected, under- and unemployed workers.

But CGIL and UIL opposed the Act for making the workers even more vulnerable while failing to produce enough jobs for the unemployed.

The slogan chosen for the general strike, which follows on from recent massive protests, is “Cosi non va” (“So wrong”).

Elena Lattuada, secretary general of CGIL Lombardy, the richest and most popular region Italy, tells Equal Times: “Italy saw 200,000 dismissals in the third trimester of 2014. This confirms that even without the Jobs Act, flexibility is already widespread.

“There is no need to liberalise the job market, but rather to stimulate demand in order to re-launch consumption and employment.”

 

Tax avoidance

Italy’s general unemployment rate is 13.2 per cent – the highest figure since records began. In addition, Italy’s economy – the third biggest in the Eurozone – has shrunk by nine per cent since 2007.

“Boosting the economy through public and private investments should be this government’s priority,” said Lattuada, “as should more transparency, and more equal and fair taxation to tackle tax avoidance – the true Italian plague”.

Danilo Margaritella, the general secretary for UIL Milan and Lombardy, said the general strike is “an important moment” for Italian workers as it forces the government to “consider our needs and voices.”

Margaritella added: “The general strike shows the government that we are willing to fight to improve and change the Jobs Act, which in its current state, features many elements that fails to protect workers and their rights”.

A mixture of spending cuts coupled with the lack of public investment and worsening labour protections in the Jobs Act and the Stability Law represents a huge battleground for Italian workers – and it’s a battle that will continue way past 12 December.