Because I, a former trade unionist, contest the unions on the Green pass
What the unions claim on the Green pass: facts and controversy. The analysis by Claudio Negro, former secretary of Uil Milan and Lombardy, now senior fellow of the Anna Kuliscioff Foundation.
The story that opposes the confederal union to the rest of the world on the issue of the compulsory Green pass to access the workplace in some ways begins to appear grotesque, in others (more serious) it seems to indicate that a change in the approach is taking place. trade union to the reality of work.
Let's take stock: the union maintains that so far in companies everything has gone very well thanks to the Protocols signed last year, and to everyone's sense of responsibility in respecting them. True, good!
But it is clear that last year the vaccine was not there and it was necessary to make do. Now much greater protection is possible, it would be inexplicable not to use it.
But – and here we begin to slip into the grotesque – the union declares to fear that the Security Protocol could be neglected "if a provision were issued to use the Green pass internally: companies cannot think of saving on security costs ".
As if the companies were only waiting for a measure that would allow them to no longer apply the Protocols signed with the union, in view of who knows what savings. An extravagant idea, attributable only to a paranoid mentality or to an ideology for which business and work are irreconcilably conflicting; both ideas of little use for the union, given that Sorel and Cremaschi belong to the past ..
An approach that, however, we find in another statement by the confederal secretariats: "We will never be willing to accept that the Green pass is used surreptitiously to change jobs, to dismiss or to make changes to the organization of work, perhaps by allocating environments to vaccinated and others to the unvaccinated ".
An appeal against vaccine apartheid that no vax can envy!
But more worrying is the often repeated assertion that businesses would just wait for the Green Pass to lay off and restructure. Grotesque: as if they could not do it at any time, as we all know, or as if, if they needed it, they were waiting for candidates for dismissal to not get vaccinated. And if they do the Green Pass, what does the company do: does it no longer restructure ..?
Here we are beyond the grotesque, we are at a childish tale of what business is and how industrial relations work.
But unfortunately there is more: the union has refused to take responsibility for an agreement with companies that establishes the obligation of the Green Pass to access the workplace: perhaps he is right when he argues that such a measure, which affects citizens' rights, must be assumed with an instrument of law. As in fact it was done for the School sector.
Except that the union does not accept that this instrument, which establishes a specific obligation, then provides for sanctions for those who do not respect it. Curious, for those who (rightly) claim exemplary sanctions for those who do not respect labor laws: companies, consultants, contractors, corporals, etc.).
So, according to the latest cries of the Union, school staff who are not vaccinated, and therefore are barred from accessing the school and therefore the possibility of carrying out their work, should not be suspended without salary.
So we will have to make it work, but how? By giving him a tampon every day! But let us be clear: the tampon is not paid by him, but by the state, which is his employer. And here the grotesque overflows into the surreal ..! Not only do I not respect the law, but you, the employer, have to pay to allow me to do so!
This idea is so popular that it is planned to extend it to the private sector, with costs naturally borne by businesses. Paraphrasing what was once said, the sleep of reason generates nonsense …
But then the question arises: what is the use? The trade unionists say they are in full agreement on vaccinations, and they declare their willingness to persuade campaigns. So why so much hostility about the obligation? A libertarian raptus? It does not seem to me to be in the cultural tradition of Italian syndicalism.
The Pavlovian reflex of “being on one side only, that of the workers” (forgive me Brodolini), that is, to protect the worker anyway and always? Perhaps a noble inspiration, but which in this case protects not the worker, but his comfort, his whims, or if you want his right to choose, an option which is, moreover, completely foreign to the trade union tradition when it comes to compliance. in accordance with the law by companies but also by workers (see, for example, L.626).
The impression is that the choice is entirely based on political politics : to give the image of a union that always and in any case defends its constituency , even if this is (allegedly) endangered by the reforms that need to be made. Which, moreover, is quite evident in the attitude that CGIL CISL UIL have so far had towards the Draghi government : request for freezing of layoffs, extension ad infinitum of social safety nets , claim for early retirement, stabilization of precarious workers regardless. Is the union also competing with the parties for easy consensus while someone else is doing the dirty work?
In reality, another version of the union is possible: the one that makes agreements in companies, that faces crises with the aim of protecting the worker and not the "job", that accepts and negotiates the exchange between measures that increase productivity and increase in salaries, which has as its objective the professional growth of employees and their empowerment in business choices, which is not afraid of innovation but rather considers it an opportunity for growth, which seeks results and not consensus. of slogans. This union exists, it is real and it operates concretely. It would be appropriate for it to be more visible and valued, in the very interest of the reliability and solidity of the Italian trade union movement.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/sindacato-green-pass-cosa-succede/ on Mon, 09 Aug 2021 06:37:26 +0000.