The government is a prisoner of its own propaganda and is finding solutions that exacerbate the problem rather than solve it. The new decree passed by the Meloni government contains provisions regarding employment, wage transparency, and the fight against undeclared work on digital platforms. In the decree's preamble, the government claims it wants to "promote equal opportunities in the labor market" and "increase stable youth employment." To this end, three new reductions in social security contributions linked to permanent hires are introduced, as well as measures for so-called fair wages and aimed at combating gang-mastering of workers employed by digital platforms.
Articles 1, 2, and 3 of the decree each provide a specific tax relief for employers who, between January 1 and December 31, 2026, hire women, young people under 35, and unemployed people over 35 in the Southern Italy Special Economic Zone (SEZ). This is subject to the condition that the positions are permanent and that the individuals receiving the relief have been unemployed for more than 24 months (12 for disadvantaged categories). The exemption covers up to 100% of contributions, with caps ranging from EUR500 to EUR800 per month.
Ultimately, these measures will lead to a decline in employment and wages. Indeed, social security contributions relief directly affects wages, specifically that portion of wages known as deferred wages, a forced saving through which workers set aside sums intended to provide them with an income once they retire from the production process, or for temporary absences due to illness, maternity, and so on, or to compensate for damages suffered due to workplace accidents or occupational diseases.
If part of wages is paid by the state, it means that the production process that employs these people is incapable of guaranteeing them an income. The government's measure, in its paltry and contradictory nature, tells us something very clear about the capitalist mode of production: that this mode of production can survive only by significantly reducing the price of labor capacity-because that is, wages-below its value, that is, below the value of the goods and services necessary to replenish the labor capacity consumed in the work process. Workers can only be employed if part of their wages is covered by public charity. This condemnation is more powerful than all the proclamations of unions and parties that invoke the labor movement, because it comes from the class enemy. Once a "fair wage" has been defined, as is done elsewhere in the decree, the government cannot help but recognize that this "fair wage," however miserable, is incompatible with capitalist accumulation!
These measures are also incapable of increasing employment. A company calculates its employment needs independently of government tax relief: increasing the number of employees is only possible with the prospect of increased production, which social security incentives can do little to address, given that personnel costs represent a small portion of a company's costs. Ultimately, social security relief will only lead to new workers being selected from those categories benefiting from the incentives, excluding those belonging to other categories.
Even if a new company were to decide to open a business by taking advantage of the incentives, perhaps by opening another location in the Special Economic Zone covering Southern Italy, and hire new staff, this company could benefit from the incentives' competitive advantage over other companies, and the new jobs would therefore lead to a reduction in employment at competing companies.
What will happen to workers once the social security benefits end? With the end of the incentives, the company's competitive advantage would also end, and the capitalist could either simply close the company, which had become unproductive, or demand sacrifices from employees to maintain competitiveness. It's easy to imagine the outcome of this blackmail.
In only one case could the measures enacted by the government have a beneficial effect on employment and the economy: if they were linked to specific industrial policy choices aimed at making the country independent of particularly expensive imports, such as solar panels or batteries. But such economic policy choices clash with the government's ideological choices favoring fossil fuels and nuclear power.
In Chapter II of the decree, the government takes on the task of defining what a "fair wage" is, distorting the very wording of the Constitution.
According to the Constitution, a fair wage must be proportional to the quantity and quality of work and, in any case, sufficient to guarantee a free and dignified existence. What a free and dignified existence means is determined by the general development of society: hunger is hunger, but it's one thing to satisfy it by eating raw food with your hands, another to eat cooked food with a knife and fork. The experience of recent years has shown that collective bargaining, even that conducted by the "most representative" unions, is no longer capable of ensuring the vast majority of workers the standard of living achieved through the struggles of the now-distant Hot Autumn. Thus, by referring to national collective bargaining, the decree circumvents the Constitution, preventing the labor courts from verifying the capacity of national collective agreements to fulfill the constitutional mandate.
Is there a different criterion? Yes, there is the basket used for the consumer price index for blue- and white-collar families. Reference to that index would be enough to at least ensure the maintenance of a standard of living.
The effects of the decree therefore translate, first and foremost, into a legitimization of the reduction in the purchasing power of employees' wages. But secondly, the decree has a further impact on representation, forcing the most representative unions to sign contracts that undercut their representation to maintain recognition. One of the criteria for representation is the signing of collective bargaining agreements: if you don't sign contracts, you're not representative. This rule has been used against grassroots and conflict-ridden unions, but now it's also being used against one of the unions traditionally considered representative, the CGIL. For example, in the education sector: the CGIL trade union failed to sign the latest collective bargaining agreement and now finds itself excluded from the rights associated with representation in that sector, a victim of the same mechanisms it had used for years against grassroots unions.
In practice, the fair wage is that established by the contract signed by the representative union, but which union represents which is up to employers, who sign or not sign contracts at their convenience, thus granting union rights to the most compliant organizations.
The decree also addresses contract renewals. Article 10 establishes that, in the event of a contract not being renewed within 12 months of its expiration, wages will be adjusted by a percentage equal to 30% of the IPCA index, as a lump sum advance.
The IPCA is the consumer price index, which is expected to be 1.90% in 2026 and 2.00% in 2027 and 2028. If the law had been implemented in 2026, pay increases would have been 0.57% in 2026 and 0.60% in 2027 and 2028. An online search shows that the current contractual holiday pay is around 0.80%; here too, we are faced with a worsening introduced by the new decree and a further theft at the expense of workers.
The only "favorable" provision for workers contained in the decree is the one regarding digital gangmastering. But this is not the brainchild of Meloni or Calderone; it is an adaptation to a European regulation.
This decree therefore establishes a series of measures that favor capitalists and are entirely to the detriment of the working class. Today, faced with the miserable conditions of the employed and unemployed, the government pretends to interfere in the relationship between the employers and the working class; in doing so, it attempts to slow the growth of the labor movement and, with some deceptive reform, prevent the struggle from allowing the exploited classes to seize everything that is theirs-that is, the well-being enjoyed by the privileged classes.
As Malatesta argued, when the government acts as a regulator and guarantor of rights and duties, it takes care to classify as a crime and punish any act that threatens the privileges of rulers and owners, declaring the most atrocious exploitation of people to be just and legal.
Let's expose the government's maneuvers and give priority to grassroots struggles.
Tiziano Antonelli
https://umanitanova.org/senza-denari-senza-calzari-nuovo-decreto-lavoro-meno-soldi-in-busta-paga-e-rischio-disoccupazione/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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