Work in Italy is not in good health. There are several indicators that signal this state: the low employment rate (although growing), modest wages, the spread of involuntary part-time work. An emblematic figure, recently contained in Istat’s report on Fair and Sustainable Wellbeing, concerns the share of fixed-term employees who have been employed for at least five years. The percentage not only concerns almost one employee in five but is also increasing from 17% in 2022 to 18.1% in 2023. These are workers who continue to carry out the same occupation, with a succession of fixed-term contracts , experiencing prolonged job insecurity, with respect to which there are no signs of improvement. The government is aware of the labor problems and plans to intervene in the next few days. For this reason, yesterday he convened and met with trade union representatives to illustrate the content of the provisions envisaged in the labor decree.
Among the measures under discussion would be relief for hiring and bonuses for low-income workers.
There are at least two critical observations that can be made of the government, one of method and one of substance. The first concerns the convocation of the unions a few days after the presentation of the decree. In the labor market, employers offering employment interact with people seeking it.
The collective interests of the former and latter are represented and protected by employers’ and trade unions’ associations. The relationship between the two subjects is clearly asymmetrical. In fact, although there are situations in which workers have highly sought-after and scarce skills and therefore enjoy broad negotiating power, it is exclusively the employers who can decide to hire. Furthermore, for the majority of employed people, the salary is uniquely defined by the companies, public administrations and families that offer jobs. What should be the government’s role in this relationship? Intervene by establishing the operating rules of the economic system and the market. To do this, continuous and systematic discussion with interested parties is necessary.
However, being called to a meeting a few days before presenting a decree does not exactly constitute a dialogue. The second critical observation concerns the nature of the interventions envisaged. If the government decides to pursue measures such as bonuses and hiring incentives, it will constitute yet another short-term policy. The vision adopted considers results in a very short period of time, neglecting the repercussions over a broader time horizon. This is functional on the one hand to the objective of electoral consensus, on the other to the difficulty of intervening with necessarily more complex structural measures. So what could the government do? A lot, especially with regulatory interventions for which it has exclusive competence. For example, taking up the data mentioned above, it could promote stability by eliminating the use of fixed-term contracts. It could possibly leave the possibility to do so for a limited period of time and only once. It could also put bans so that the continuous use of fixed-term contracts is not possible. It could prohibit the possibility of using temporary contracts through subcontracting for works or services of indefinite duration.
In many cases, in fact, workers who respond to the structural needs of companies and not to extraordinary occurrences are hired on fixed-term contracts. Well-known cases are those of cleaning services, reception or IT assistance. Finally, it could make temporary contracts significantly more expensive for businesses, discouraging the use of temporary work unless strictly necessary. In short, many things can be done to improve the health of work in Italy. Some of them would also take the form of a heartfelt defense of the inalienable dignity of workers. Bonuses certainly not.
