WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY News Journal Update - (en) Italy, FDCA, Il Cantiere #19: The discovery of hot water - Cristiano Valente (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The first data are available from a very recent national survey on the

conditions and expectations of workers promoted by the national CGIL,
coordinated by the Di Vittorio Foundation. (1) ---- The survey organized
through a questionnaire, distributed between May and September 2022,
reached 50 thousand workers and 31 thousand forms containing adequate
answers, correctly filled in, on which the study is based. The sample is
therefore highly representative and has all the characteristics to carry
out a general extrapolation and to express what the conditions and above
all the expectations of workers actually are. Workers from all public
and private sectors, of all company sizes, all types of contracts and
even those without a contract or unemployed were consulted.
The majority of respondents work in medium and large-sized companies:
25.7% in companies with between 50 and 249 employees and 40.3% in
companies with more than 250 employees, while 13.3% in companies with
fewer of 15 employees. So over 65% in large concentrations of workers
and workers. Furthermore, the companies are mostly private (56.9%) and
one in four works for a public body (25.4%), mostly in public
administration, health and social care services, education and research;
10.8% work in a third sector organization and 6.9% in a company
controlled by public administrations. Considering private companies,
7.6% work on contracts for the public administration and 42.4% in
multinational companies (22.2% Italian multinational and 20.2% foreign
multinational). The 18th,
A sample that essentially represents the central and still unionized
core of the working class coming from medium-large workplaces, where
there are delegates and company bargaining. Yet very significant is the
share, 29.4%, who respond that they are not members due to their lack of
knowledge of the industrial action. Among the youngest, lack of
knowledge of the union's activities as a reason for not joining affects
almost half of the respondents, as is the fear of the consequences it
could have. 16.5% declare that they have not participated in any union
initiative in the last year (a share that rises to 48.5% for
non-members) and the activity with the highest participation rates is
that of union meetings ( almost half of the respondents).
Considering contacts with the union in the last year, 16.5% have had no
contact (a share that rises to 46.5% for non-members) and two out of
three have had contact with union representatives, one in three used the
services of the Chambers of Labor and 14.9% consulted the websites.
Women represent 54.4% of the total respondents, but are in the minority,
at 42.1%, among trade union representatives.
Regarding the type of employment relationship, 86.9% of the sample has a
permanent contract, of which 70.3% full-time and 16.6% part-time.
Atypical workers, including fixed-term workers, are 13.2%.
Of great interest is the figure of those who accuse the union of
inadequate combativeness which exceeds by more than four times those who
instead complain of an excess of antagonism as reported in Fig. 9.
On the other hand, 42% of the total sample, and even 57.5% of
non-members, cannot indicate whether a company contract is in force in
their company. Another highly significant fact is that over a third of
the sample asks to strengthen bargaining at a European and international
level as the risks and fears linked to international wage dumping and
the consequent delocalisations which have become widespread in recent
years are increasingly perceivable.
Subsequently, the study, which we recommend reading in full, examines a
series of indicators that confirm and reiterate the urgency and need to
resolve the insufficiency of salaries, under-classification, workloads
and autonomy in the respective realities workers but, as can be seen
from the figure below, the univocal indication is represented by the
need and urgency of a wage battle, capable of regaining the purchasing
power of wages.
Approximately 70% (Fig.12) of the responses of all types (members and
non-members, representatives and non-members), when asked which issues
the union should pursue, indicate salary increases. In second place,
again without major differences between the types interviewed, is the
defense of employment and in third place is the fight against job
insecurity which characterizes a large part of the working class in this
phase, especially women and the new generations.

"Divide et impera"

Therefore, if we ask workers what their interests are and along which
lines an effective struggle should be developed
union, in line with their incessant battle towards their liberation from
exploitation, the response is always the same: greater struggles for
higher wages, greater employment, better regulatory conditions and
defense of public services.
The discovery of hot water precisely.
It does not seem understandable, in the face of this, that the trade
union leaders are struggling to define a concrete generalized wage
battle. Yet the availability of workers is more than evident.
In reality, however, the CCNL for private security and trust services,
i.e. unarmed security guards, is being closed, awaited for eight years
by over 100 thousand workers, with increases that are negligible, if not
scandalous, to say the least.
A security guard without a role of responsibility does not even reach
1,100 euros gross per month for an hourly wage of 5 euros gross per hour.
The new contract provides for an increase of only 140 euros, spread over 4

years, from July this year to 2026. This means that there will be no
perceivable change in the pay slip and that workers will be forced to do
much more than the 173 hours per month to earn a decent salary: already
now the average of overtime is approximately ten hours per week.
We then move on to the school contract, signed on 14 July last for one
million two hundred thousand workers, which in reality is the tail end
of the political agreement signed between the Minister and the Unions
last 22 November relating to the three-year contract 2019-2021
Also in this case the figure that is bandied about by the signatory
trade unions, an increase of 124 euros, which is in any case
insufficient compared to an inflation which in food and therefore in the
shopping basket for the working masses stands at over 10%, is a real
lie, because in that figure there is also the approximately 100 euros
already arrived in December. The real figures of the agreement of 14
July are: 13.90 euros per month on average for teachers starting from 1
January 2022 and 8.37 euros for ATAs starting from 1

January 2021 and a one-off payment of 63.84 euros for teachers and 44.11
euros for
  ATA staff.
Since this poverty is not enough in economic terms, heavy regulatory
changes are introduced in the teaching body such as the "tutor",
importing procedures and organizational systems typical of the corporate
world into the school system, linking these figures and these tasks to
additional economic figures ad personam, and the introduction of further
heavy forms of discrimination and class selection in public schools, in
continuity and complete harmony with the "good school" project of
Renzian memory. (2)
The discomfort of such a miserable and fraudulent choice, understandably
masked by the government, this time must have been high, so much so that
the Uil Scuola Rua itself, at the time of writing these notes, has not
signed the new agreement.
At the exact same moment, by the same managements of the major trade
union organisations, CGIL, CISL and UIL, in the company of the
autonomous trade union organization Fabi, the majority in the banking
and credit sector, it is defined and brought into discussion with the
counterpart ABI (Association Italian Banking), a hypothesis of renewal
of the three-year contract 2023-2025, for the 280 thousand workers in
the sector, asking for a salary adjustment of 435 euros to the average
level and a reduction in hours for the same pay, going from the current
37, 5 hours to 35 hours per week, with the reduction of 30 minutes per day.
This platform hypothesis, voted by the vast majority of workers in the
sector, over 90% of the participants in the meetings, has already
received a substantial green light from Carlo Messina, CEO and Managing
Director of Intesa Sanpaolo, the leading banking group in Italy by
number of branches, by market share and in which just under 100 thousand
workers work who, after the revocation of the representation mandate on
the ABI contract, participates in the negotiations with the permanent
invitation formula.
Furthermore, in the last meeting of the Italian Banking Association, the
President, Antonio Patuelli, recognized the need to modernize the
contract and said he was convinced in granting workers the recovery of
purchasing power, even if in the last meeting between the parties on 26
July it was decided to extend the old contract until 31 December 2023.
The paradox is that in the very premises of the article of the unitary
platform presented, the trade union organizations stigmatize the
attitude of division and diversification, of the regulatory and salary
conditions auspicious of an increasingly individualized and essentially
blackmailing relationship on the part of the employer counterpart.
In fact, we can read: "The individualisation of the employment
relationship is the consequence of a reasoned strategy of companies,
which are increasingly open to individual bargaining, to the detriment
of collective bargaining of wages and rights. Even when it seems to
bring tangible and immediate advantages, this tendency isolates and
separates "people" from each other, as well as from the work community,
overwhelming them only on individual needs "here and now". It is
therefore necessary to relaunch and increase the value of wages and the
value of regulatory security as objects of collective bargaining and
guarantee of certainty and stability of treatments." (3)
If this applies to workers in the banking and credit sector, why
shouldn't it apply to the entire workers' movement?
If we recognize the need for a strong wage recovery for workers, such as
those in the banking and credit sector, who have, compared to other
working sectors, good wages, still sufficient regulatory guarantees,
despite the continuous closures and staff reductions that the sector has
had in recent years, how can we not equally recognize the same need
(indicated by the workers themselves) of a generalized battle on wages,
with the request for significant figures capable of an effective
recovery of the purchasing power of wages?
To change the balance of power between employers, whether public or
private, and the working masses, in favor of the latter, it would be
necessary to use the most protected and guaranteed sectors, such as bank
workers, precisely by virtue of the interest that the owners of the
banks (the bankers) have in closing and normalizing the sector as soon
as possible.
This is, in fact, a sector experiencing strong growth in revenues,
reaching 413 billion euros, of which more than half (50.5%) i.e. 209
billion corresponding to commissions, while 204 billion (49.5%) come
from the margin of interest, i.e. from loans, and dividends paid to
shareholders, which in the last 10 years have gone from 1.5 billion in
2012 to 2.2 billion in 2015; 5.5 billion in 2019, to 12.5 billion in
2020. (4)
These workers (280 thousand) both in quantity and in their economic and
financial position in the production system could and should represent
the ram's head of the entire movement, which should focus on a single
unitary and generalized battle of an economic nature, avoiding divide
the movement into individual disputes and individual product contracts,
fragmenting and segmenting the working condition even further.

The social block

The central node is always the same. Being able to connect the material
and general needs and expectations of the working masses with the
historical interests that these same masses represent, namely their
liberation from capitalist exploitation.
Structure yourself organizationally to represent and tend to actually
implement the indications and needs that workers express. But on the
alleged need for a law on representation, loudly requested by all the
major trade union organisations, including the CISL, even if they do not
agree on the proposal of the minimum hourly wage, it must be said that
one cannot think of representing those that is, if the material
conditions of the working class are not protected and if it is not
possible to win some fundamental battles and objectives. Only if the
struggle pays can that sense of solidarity develop and generalize which
increasingly manifests itself and grows with the greater awareness that
the united struggle produces results. Forty years of continuous defeats
and setbacks, The social block of reference that is overall and
potentially interested in a real season of struggle is, in reality, immense.
The income tax returns of employees published by the Ministry of Finance
show that 73.2%, i.e. approximately 15 million workers, do not earn 26
thousand euros gross per year, but above all, over 7 million earn less
than 15 thousand euros. gross per year and over 10 million workers
declare incomes of no more than 20 thousand euros per year. (5) This
immense "proletarian army", with the addition of pensioners, (over 13
million social security payments and over 4 million treatments
attributable to assistance), in particular the approximately 10 million
who receive pensions of less than 750 euros per month, together with the
new generations and women they are the political subject who objectively
has common interests, but who are divided between categories, productive
realities,

The battle for the minimum wage

For some time, there has been talk of the need to introduce, also in
Italy, a threshold for the minimum hourly wage. An objective initially
conveyed and indicated by antagonistic but marginal trade union and
political sectors, subsequently by the 5 Star Movement, but which
following the approval of the European directive in October last year,
has taken on ever greater weight in the political and trade union
debate, so much so as to develop a bill by the political opposition to
the Meloni government, from the PD to the M5Stelle to reach sectors of
the political left such as the Green Italian Left coalition in
substantial convergence of trade union organizations, most recently the
CGIL itself, the UIL and the self-defined basic trade union structures,
such as the USB or the CUB.
The distinction between the different hypotheses is exclusively on the
figure, such as the popular initiative law proposal launched by Potere
al Popolo and Unione Popolare which provides for 10 euros gross instead
of the 9 of the political opposition's proposal, to move to the 12 euros
gross requested by the CUB.
There are 21 out of 27 European countries that have a minimum wage
established by law. But of these only 6 (Luxembourg, Holland, France,
Ireland, Belgium and Germany) have a minimum wage above 9 euros an hour
as they would like to introduce in Italy with the bill signed by Conte
and Schlein.
The other 15 European countries have minimum wages set by law of less
than 7 euros per hour. Spain of 6.06 euros per hour, Portugal of 4.25
euros per hour, Greece of 3.83 euros per hour, Hungary of 3.21 euros per
hour up to Bulgaria which has the legal wage lower than 2 euros per hour.
It is therefore not a law that by setting the minimum hourly threshold
will be able to solve the problems that afflict our class and which we
have summarily exposed so far. It is true that the law itself, if
approved, does not preclude bargaining, as in fact happens in Germany
and France and as many detractors of the proposed law, starting from the
CISL, complain. Just as it is equally true that the presence of a law
that defines an hourly wage does not in itself guarantee the absence of
conditions and situations of poverty and economic difficulty as in
Greece and in France itself.
Ultimately, in addition to an hourly wage level which in Italy
realistically will not exceed 50% of the average gross wage, because
this is the indication of the European directive itself, we are
therefore talking about average gross figures from 625 to 850 euros per
month being, in based on ISTAT and Confindustria reports updated to 31
May 2023, the average salary in Italy is between EUR22,500 gross and
EUR28,500 with an average monthly salary between EUR1,250 and EUR1,700.
Furthermore, much will depend on the hours actually worked, taking into
account that, in Italy, over 60% of workers who work reduced hours are
involuntary part-time, with an overwhelming majority of women, as well
as the ever-increasing spread of atypical forms and fixed-term
employment and without forgetting illegal work.
The road back to the top appears long and tortuous, well beyond a
legislative proposal.
Therefore, if the battle over the minimum hourly wage represents, as it
can represent, a resumption of the struggle on the economic terrain, a
united and generalized battle as indicated in the investigation, our
comrades, militants in the fight for class, convey this indication in
all working areas, in all the trade union structures in which we are
present, as only and exclusively the unity and constant autonomous
organizational capacity of workers will be able to avoid further future
defeats.

Note:
(1)
https://www.fondazionedivittorio.it/it/iricercatorionale-sulle-conditioni-e-expectative-delle-lavorotrici-e-dei-lavorotori-primi
(2) See The school of merit and class selection by Francesco Lacantore -
il CANTIERE - n°18 June 2023.
(3) fisac-cgil.it CCNL_ABI
(4)
https://www.fabi.it/2023/07/19/parte-il-negoziato-per-il-rinnovo-del-contratto-nazionale-dei-bancari/
(5)il CANTIERE - n°11 October 2022

Alternativa Libertaria/FdCA Il Cantiere #19 settembre 2023
ilcantiere@autistici.org
_________________________________________
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