Because according to the Italian SMEs, the minimum wage of Conte and Schlein is a boomerang
In countries that have already introduced the legal minimum wage, the issue of underpaid workers and the spread of illegal practices are unfortunately still present. The intervention of Marco Pepe, national councilor of Unimpresa
In her September 2020 State of the Union address, the President of the European Commission, von der Leyen, said: “for too many people, work no longer pays: wage dumping destroys the dignity of work, penalizes the entrepreneur who pay decent wages and distort fair competition in the single market”. "Everyone must have access to minimum wages, whether through collective agreements or legal minimum wages." Based on these premises, the proposal for a directive under examination aims to provide the necessary support to reform the systems for determining minimum wages. On the other hand, it must be taken into account that, according to article 153 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the possible definition of a minimum wage falls within the competence of the Member States.
At present, the minimum wage exists in all Member States: legal minimum wages exist in 21 countries (the amount of this minimum value varies significantly, from 312 euros per month in Bulgaria to 2,142 euros per month in Luxembourg), while in 6 Member States (Denmark, Italy , Cyprus, Austria, Finland and Sweden) minimum wage protection is provided exclusively by collective agreements.
THE PROPOSAL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
On 28 October 2020, the European Commission presented a proposal for a directive on adequate minimum wages in the European Union (COM(2020)682) to set minimum requirements at Union level to ensure both that minimum wages are set at an appropriate level, whether workers have access to minimum wage protection, in the form of the statutory minimum wage or wages determined under collective agreements.
The Commission's objective is not to standardize national minimum wage systems for the definition of a single minimum wage for all Member States, but rather to aim for upward convergence of minimum wages, respecting the specificities of each internal legal system and the dialogue between the social partners at the same time. The proposal does not oblige Member States to introduce legal minimum wages, nor does it set a common level of minimum wages. In a nutshell, the proposal intends to contribute to three more favorable wage and working conditions in the EU, by intervening in particular on three axes:
- better adequacy of statutory minimum wages (where they exist), including by defining stable and clear criteria for determining and updating them (including purchasing power, also taking into account taxes and social benefits, general level of gross wages and their distribution , gross wage growth rate and labor productivity trend) and greater involvement of the social partners in their definition;
- promotion of collective bargaining in all Member States, especially in those where collective bargaining coverage is less than 70% of workers;
- better enforcement and monitoring for all Member States, including through annual reporting by Member States to the Commission, together with a structured dialogue.
UNIMPRESA'S ANALYSIS ON THE MINIMUM WAGE IN ITALY
In the current Italian regulatory system, the discipline of the criteria for calculating remuneration is entrusted to collective bargaining which over the years has guaranteed, in the majority of production sectors, a satisfactory and decent minimum wage level, in fact, in Italy, it has been scarcely having felt the need (brought to the fore in 2019 by the yellow-green government) to adopt a minimum wage, as happens in other European countries, guaranteed by law.
The highest gross hourly minimum wage in Europe is recorded in Luxembourg and is equal to €11.97, while the lowest is expected in Bulgaria and amounts to €1.62, the amount of the minimum hourly wage varies greatly from country to country: developing countries as well as some Mediterranean countries emerging from heavy economic crises have minimum hourly wages even significantly lower than €5, while countries with consolidated and more developed industrial economies are positioned above €9. The minimum wage in France is set at €10.03, in Germany it is €9.19, in Belgium it is €9.41, in Holland it is €9.33, in Spain it is €6.09, in the United Kingdom it is at €9.54, in England it is instead equal to €8.21, in Ireland it has a value of €9.80.
The differences in the determination of the minimum wage within the countries of the European Union are, therefore, quite evident, both at an overall economic and social level (cost of living, productivity, competitiveness and development), and at a labor law level both in relation to the components of remuneration as regards working hours and, starting from this situation, the identification of a single, effective, efficient and congruous monetary value throughout Europe appears almost utopian.
In fact, given that the average monthly salary of the European countries is equal to approximately €924, if the European minimum wage were calculated on the basis of this average, it would never find the possibility of approval, as it would lead to an unsustainable increase in the cost of labor for many countries. work and thus the growth in the level of unemployment, the increase in irregular work and the loss of competitiveness.
Otherwise, if the threshold were set at a decidedly lower level, the economically less developed states would retain some room for maneuver to reach the established level, but with the risk of downward bargaining for the workers of the richer countries compared to the that they are less rich.
Reasoning from another point of view, one could then imagine the minimum wage not as a preordained value, but as a value to be determined through a system which identifies, for everyone, some fixed parameters and a calculation methodology based on the level socio-economic and labor costs of each country.
It is precisely the countries characterized by high collective bargaining coverage that have a lower proportion of low-wage workers, lower wage inequality and higher minimum wages.
In the Italian regulatory system, as mentioned above, the discipline of the quantitative aspects and of the systems and criteria for calculating remuneration is entrusted to collective bargaining which, integrated by individual autonomy, in any case bound to the constitutional principles of proportionality and sufficiency, and operating in key to improvement, constitutes the largely preeminent source of it, fulfilling the task of guaranteeing a satisfactory and dignified minimum wage level, especially for the less professionally skilled workers.
In this regard, it is useful to note that INPS declares that the National Collective Labor Agreements in its archive for private sector employees have an extremely high level of coverage: in fact, they cover a total of 1.5 million employers. (99 per cent of companies in Italy) and 14.7 million workers (equal to 97.6 per cent of the workforce employed in the private sector)
Moreover, the jurisprudential interpretation of the art. 36 of the Constitution has ended up recognizing the nature of "constitutional" remuneration to the economic treatments established by collective agreements (so-called minimum tables), although lacking in erga omnes binding nature, so much so that in Italy the need was scarcely felt that the minimum wage was, as happens in many other European legal systems, guaranteed by law.
Furthermore, the Italian salary level is not expressed and declined only by the contractual minimums by employment level, but is characterized by numerous variable items which contribute to making the salary panorama very uneven and which must necessarily be considered in view of the introduction of the salary legal minimum, having to clarify what is included in the fixed value determined by law (think of the additional monthly salaries, i.e. thirteenth and fourteenth, severance pay, holidays, paid leave, all variable remuneration of a bonus type, but also the social security contributions and taxation which, depending on the total income, is subjectively variable).
THE RIGHT VALUE
Well, in the difficult search for a fair minimum wage value, it must be remembered that setting a tariff that is too high could discourage the demand for work and/or represent an incentive to irregular work, while one that is too low would end up not guaranteeing living conditions dignity to which the institution is aimed.
According to the OECD, by setting the legal minimum wage threshold at €9 gross per hour, the Italian wage level would become one of the highest among the member countries, with potentially serious repercussions and very high costs: the workers involved in the wage increase in fact, they would be equal to 2.9 million, with an average annual salary increase of €1,073, with an overall increase in the value of 3.2 billion and a total cost for companies estimated at around 6.7 billion.
This increase in labor costs would have a negative impact mainly on small and medium-sized enterprises, drastically reducing their competitiveness especially in international markets; the negative effects could, on the other hand, be more contained for large companies, which tend to be more solid and with greater economic resources.
While establishing a more congruous value, the introduction of the legal minimum wage raises, in any case, many doubts about its real usefulness considering that collective bargaining, in Italy, is NOT only measured on the minimum hourly value but adds up to the increases for overtime or holiday or night work, just to mention a few more common and well-known items, but also to seniority increases, to the 13th and/or 14th month salary.
An example for all: the renewal of 4 May 2023 of the UNIMPRESA National MULTISERVIZI Contract sets the hourly rate at €7.09/hour at the lowest level, reaching 2026, i.e. at the end of the 3-year contract at €7.50 / hour, but only considering an overtime of just one hour which is equal to a 25% increase, the minimum gross wage will be €9.27/hour, well over the legal €9 set by the OECD.
As already mentioned, in the context of an economy undergoing constant technological and organizational transformation, in a labor market that is less and less anchored to traditional schemes but increasingly directed, albeit in the common form of subordination, to greater working hours flexibility and agility of methods with which the work performance renders, as well as increasingly oriented towards remunerating the professionalism of the workers rather than the qualifications defined by collective agreements through performance bonuses also converted into goods and services of social utility included in the company welfare, it follows that the measurement of overall economics is certainly very complicated.
Moreover, in countries that have already introduced the legal minimum wage, the issue of underpaid workers and the spread of illegal practices are unfortunately still present and this despite the increase in technological controls on salary data up to the application of practices such as the name and shaming with which companies that do not respect the legal minimum wages are publicly denounced.
Ultimately: at whatever level it was fixed, a minimum wage in Italy would have a particular impact on small and very small businesses in the South; with consequences that are not difficult to imagine: reduction of manpower or, alternatively, further recourse to the "undeclared".
In Italy, the determination of wages is left to collective bargaining and, it is reiterated, the Italian model of trade union relations is characterized by a high level of organizational pluralism for each production sector, both on the workers' and employers' sides, therefore for the Legislator, in order to comply with the Directive, it can refer to national collective agreements.
Below are some examples of national contract renewals signed by Unimpresa.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/salario-minimo-effetto-pmi-unimpresa/ on Thu, 13 Jul 2023 05:07:57 +0000.