A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #15-26 - No money, no shoes. New employment decree: less money in paychecks and the risk of unemployment (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

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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