WORLD WORLDWIDE SICILIA News Journal Update - (en) Sicilia Libertaria, Oct-23: IT'S RAINING STONES - THE MINIMUM WAGE FAKE (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 - On 3 May 2018, Senate Act 300, a bill was filed for "the establishment

of the minimum hourly wage", for EUR9 net of social security
contributions, to be extended not only to CCNL but also to self-employed
workers. ---- - On 12 July 2018, Senate Act 658, links the minimum
hourly wage with the application of the overall economic treatment of
the CCNL signed by the most representative associations and not less
than EUR9 gross. ---- - On 30 April 2019, Senate Act 1259, provides for
reference to the overall economic treatment provided for by the CCNL but
indicates that the minimum tabular treatment applies to workers, no
longer making reference to the overall economic treatment.

Artfully the confusion reigns supreme since they do not define what is
meant by the hourly value of the minimum wage, overall economic
treatment, minimum table treatment. The employer's non-intentions thus
appear evident.

- On 14 September 2022 the European Parliament approved the new
directive on adequate minimum wages, giving EU states two years to give
them the freedom to choose the implementing decrees.

- In the summer of 2023, PD-Schlein is promoting a signature collection
for a minimum hourly wage of EUR9. after receiving a NO! in unison by
Confindustria (Bonomi) and the government (Meloni) on 15 March 2023. A
denialism based fundamentally on two fakes:

1) collective bargaining would cover 85% of employees and the minimum
wage is already defined through it; furthermore it would be a welfare
measure equal to the citizen's income;

2) raising the minimum wage would excessively burden business costs,
making them uncompetitive on the markets, thus slowing down the
development of the "Italian System".

The "Italian System":

- out of 854 CCNLs filed with the CNEL, INPS only has 403 in its
UNIEMENS application; therefore there are 541 "pirate contracts" where a
group of companies forms an association and mercenaries form a
"syndicate" in order to sign in solidarity.

- Workers forced to sell their workforce directly to the boss in the
agri-food, tourism, commerce, personal services, daily and hourly hotel
sectors are exposed to the blackmail of individual contracts, of the
fake worker-members of the cooperatives under contract, the employees of
small and medium-sized enterprises, the intellectual and digital workers
with VAT number hired on a project basis, the part-timers for life,
those totally illegal: a concentrationary universe of precariousness, of
a reserve army of manpower.

- The formulation and application of collective agreements, the
structure and value of wages are exclusively determined by the class
force exercised by workers on the bosses; compliance with the CCNL is
prone to employer arbitrariness, as demonstrated by the recent fights at
"Italpizza", at "Mondo Convenience". With 30 years of economic
liberalism and political-union collaboration, there are no more wage
increases and the loss of purchasing power from inflation, austerity and
the glocal crisis places the proletarians in third to last place in
Europe, after Romania and Bulgaria in terms of wages and labor costs .
Neo-liberalism has privatized and financialized existence while
simultaneously creating mass poverty, institutionally eliminating any
social protection, transforming rights into profits.

- The average of the minimum treatment is EUR7.31 and an increase to
EUR9 leads to a 21.3% increase in costs, where the companies are mostly
small and medium-sized which do not invest in product evolution or in
technological research and innovation but they choose to be competitive
thanks to a low price obtained by reducing the cost of the workforce:
they produce goods and services with low added value. Calderone,
Minister of Labor and Social Policies, with the proverbial humor of
politics, informs that the government is committed to guaranteeing
better collective bargaining with wage levels adequate for work
performance and not the setting of a minimum wage: a promise of further
increase in loads and working hours where more is already produced and
for longer hours in Europe.

- The average gross salary (in accordance with INPS) is EUR27,000
compared to the European average of over EUR37,000 and 11.7% of
employees receive a salary lower than the contractual minimums envisaged
(in-work poverty in the EU, 2022 report ). There are 5.6 million people
in absolute poverty (9.4% of the population); there are 1.96 million
poor families (7.5%). Poor despite their work: one worker in three earns
less than EUR12,000 gross per year (29.5%) and 1.3 million earn less
than EUR8.41 per hour (9.4% of the total). ISTAT 2022.

A class of poor where, however, the unworthy salary is a change that has
already occurred over time but is only an item of the income received,
which determines the real condition of life: on the other hand, where
the salary becomes the only source of income you are reduced to a
servile condition. The struggles of the second half of the 20th century
had transformed needs into rights with public health, the workers'
statute, the abolition of wage cages and piece rates, the escalator,
guaranteed holidays, pensions, the right to education, public housing,
divorce and assisted abortion: it is welfare, which diverted part of the
profits to the entire society, creating "income" for families. It is on
the re-conquest of income that we must concentrate the recomposition of
an antagonistic movement that unites all the social subjects of the
capitalist catastrophe in a network of contents and objectives, common
fighting practices and egalitarian and cooperating existences, to
simultaneously attack the entire complexity of the exploited condition.

Roberto Brioschi

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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