In recent weeks, an ILO report[i] has been widely circulated which,
analyzing the trend of wages, noted the fact that in recent decades thewages of Italian workers have decreased not only relative to those of
those who carry out the same activity in other "developed" countries but
also in absolute terms[ii]. ---- Quite understandably, the data that has
been circulated have aroused a certain interest, at least in the
newspapers, even if, in reality, what has been brought to the attention
of the public opinion was already quite well known, so much so that it
is at the basis of the minimum wage proposals presented by both the PD,
AVS and the 5 Star Movement and by the parties of the "radical" left.
It is worthwhile to very briefly recap what the report we are discussing
states. First of all, it recalls that real wages in Italy have decreased
by 8.7% compared to 2008, with low-income workers being penalized the
most by inflation.
Italy stands out, it says, for a negative wage trend in the long term,
with real wages lower than those of 2008. It is the worst result of the
G20 countries.
It is important to remember the fact that migrant workers earn on
average 26.3% less than Italian workers.
"Low-income workers - it says - are the most affected by the impact of
inflation on basic necessities. Real wages have decreased due to the
surge in inflation in the two-year period 2022-2023, but those who have
suffered the greatest loss of purchasing power are low-income workers
since they are the ones who spend the largest part of their wages on
basic necessities such as housing, energy and food. In the case of
Italy, where there is no legal minimum wage, the ILO continues, wages
are set through collective bargaining. Nominal hourly wages calculated
on an average of the Ccnl in the last 10 years have increased by 15%. In
real terms, wages have suffered a loss of 5% and produced a drop in
workers' purchasing power".
Now one fact is evident, the relative impoverishment of male and female
workers is an international fact but, in particular in Italy, there is
an absolute impoverishment on which it is perhaps worth thinking.
A first consideration that is worth making is that a generic indignation
for the fact that there is a very significant share of "poor work" in
the absence of a mass mobilization is absolutely irrelevant.
The real question that should really be answered is why in recent
decades a strong and effective mobilization for wages has not been
given. Let's try to formulate some hypotheses: the choice of
concertation by the institutional unions has substantially worked and
has been based on the exchange between the guarantee of rights, funding,
power to the institutional unions themselves and the compression of
wages. In this way the institutional unions have accentuated the drift
towards the transformation into a service union, which has guaranteed
them a reasonable hold from the point of view of the associative
consistency: you join the union in exchange for a protection from the
normative point of view that is actually necessary in the context of the
bureaucratization of the world, but it is not attributed any role with
regard to remuneration, rights, work organization. On the other hand,
the bargaining is absolutely shielded, the counterpart decides the
necessary resources and the unions at most express themselves on how to
redistribute them having as a premise the fact that in any case the
increases will be much lower than what is foreseen by the bargaining.
However, it may be worth evaluating this device from a non-obvious point
of view, that is, from that of the relationship between the strength of
the workers' movement and the development of the business system. Now,
it is an obvious fact that Italian capitalism, having secured wage
moderation, has not at all used the resources thus freed up in
investments, innovations and development, but, on the contrary, has
played on low wages to place itself in the international division of
labor in the less innovative segments. To some extent it can be said
that a real decline of Italian capitalism has been favored by the
decline of the labor movement. In this regard, it is enough to think of
the modesty of investments in the training sector, which is absolutely
fundamental for a lively and innovative capitalism.
Let's try to read what an observer not suspected of subversive
orientation such as Maurizio Del Conte, professor of Labor Law at
Bocconi, claims in an interview in "La Repubblica" on March 24, 2025:
"Wages in Italy «have been flat for thirty years, since the season of
wage moderation inaugurated with the Ciampi protocol of 1993». Since
then, for Maurizio Del Conte only «the spiral of low productivity and
the screw with low wages».
Professor, is it all the fault of concertation?
«At the time the goal was to bring Italy into Europe and the euro. Put a
brake on the sliding scale, on inflation, return to the economic
parameters. We did it by shielding national bargaining to keep wages
under control. Giving greater power to the unions in exchange for
greater sacrifices by workers».
But then the companies adapted.
«When you focus everything on wage moderation, a phenomenon is
triggered: your production system moves to where it competes on low
labor costs, instead of investing in technology and improving product
quality».
Is this the explanation for low wages and poor work?
«If you disinvest in production with greater added value and no longer
do research and development because it costs too much, you end up like
the OECD says: you end up at the bottom of the value chain. Italian
excellence is not a system or a mass. The bulk comes from large
companies that produce little value and low wages. So you don't improve
productivity, you put more people to work and you pay them little. Which
is what is happening in this phase".
How to read the employment record?
"The number of employed people is growing, as in all of Europe after the
pandemic. But production is not growing correspondingly, with the same
strength. And so GDP is not recovering. This translates into a further
depreciation of work. Companies hire a lot because they pay little. Then
there is the problem of finding and retaining work, also due to the
demographic crisis. The weapon is the price: low wages in exchange for
permanent contracts".
What can the minimum wage solve?
"Not the real problem: that of median wages that are now close to the
poverty line. We have tied the wage issue in Italy too much to the
minimum wage, doing it a great injustice and at the same time not
looking at what happens where an hour of work is paid 12-13 euros, but
workers can't even cover the rent".
Is it also the unions' fault?
"We are stuck. In 1993, a system without a minimum wage was designed,
with a national contract on low levels and possible additions in the
company contract. A system similar to a lever held back precisely so as
not to raise wages. But even where productivity has increased, as in the
last two years, then they have not gone to redistribution. And wages
have not risen. Everyone was fine with that"."
I would like to avoid misunderstandings: I do not think that an irenic
situation in which the development of capital and the growth of direct,
indirect and deferred wages go hand in hand is a desirable or possible
objective, it is all too evident that the accumulation of capital is
based on the exploitation of the workforce.
However, it is equally true that the relationship between capital and
labor, as well as, more generally, that between dominant and subordinate
classes and between State and society, is a dialectical relationship
that continually transforms the subjects in conflict.
In particular, class conflict is not a mere quantitative reaction to
exploitation, but a pressure that determines reactions, adaptations,
innovations.
Returning to the starting point of our reflection, if it is true that
productive decentralization, the dwarfism of companies, the positioning
in the low end of the value chain determine difficulties for class
action, it is equally true that only an ability to regain the initiative
by identifying the weak points of the productive fabric and the system
of domination can allow us to operate a change of perspective.
Cosimo Scarinzi
[i] The International Labour Organization (ILO) published, on 24 March
2025, the "World Wage Report 2024-25: Trends in wages and wage
inequality in Italy and in the world". The World Wage Report is
published every two years by the International Labour Organization
(ILO). The ILO's action on wage inequality is part of the United Nations
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Goal 10), which aims to reduce
inequalities both within individual countries and at a global level.
[ii] On the "World Wage Report 2024-25: Trends in wages and wage
inequality in Italy and the world" an article by Avis Everhard "WHO
SWEATS THE WAGE. ILO Report and social justice" was published in Umanità
Nova on 1 April 2025, which addresses the topic on the basis of a close
critique of the capitalist mode of production and distribution and, in
particular, of the connection between the action of the State and the
material condition of our class.
https://umanitanova.org/la-sociologia-della-miseria-e-la-miseria-della-sociologia/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten