Because May Day has become a Patron Saint’s Day

1 May 20213 years ago babelfish

The May Day festival has lost much of its sacredness. Faith has failed, the world of work has become secular, are priests or those who preach in his name no longer credible? There is not only this. The value and character of the work have changed, but the faithful of this creed have not recognized them

It is not 0 km, but this year the one of May 1st is a proximity festival. The union leaders hold traditional rallies in the triangle of central Italy in Terni (Maurizio Landini), Rome (Luigi Sbarra) and Rieti (Pierpaolo Bombardieri) respectively.

Unfortunately this glorious day (which in the last century was reduced to a number on the calendar or requisitioned with great fanfare by totalitarian regimes) has become a sort of Feast of the Patron Saint for us (luckily the Church has given a hand to name St. Joseph the worker) with the usual processions, the icons of the anniversary, the festivals, the fireworks, the homilies, the banners and flags, the banners and the inspiration of the poster design.

For many reasons, those who no longer work – that is, retirees – who keep a firm memory of work in the unfolding of their life time are the ones who make the processions dignified in terms of participation and the squares presentable.

Basically, we all know that this festival has lost much of its sacredness. Faith has failed, the world of work has become secular, are priests or those who preach in his name no longer credible? There is not only this. The value and character of work have changed, but the faithful of this creed have not recognized them, a bit like traditionalist Christians who insist on attending masses in Latin.

The model of worker who can boast full membership in that condition of which the international day recurs is represented by the specific profile of the twentieth century: an employee hired with a permanent contract in a medium-large company, unionized, oriented to left, breadwinner.

Attention: despite what the unions complain, this figure is still largely prevalent on the labor market; and it is from this figure that companies ask for a professionalism that does justice to decades of Taylorist organization of work, returning and developing to that type of skilled worker who was undermined by the fragmentation of work.

Certainly the culture of that worker was the result of a long manual experience acquired starting from the apprenticeship of the trade; today a culture of technology is required that is not only enriched over time and with practice but through schooling, basic preparation and continuous training. It is no longer enough to understand by ear how well the machine works, but to know the algorithm.

Yet, in the squares reopened at the events “ with distancing '', the workers present will not be promised by the managers at the tribune a job guaranteed by the bargaining power connected to their professionalism, but by laws that make them immovable and that will ensure their income protection in in case of job loss (not specific help to find another one through the necessary reconversion processes) and they will guarantee to cross the pension threshold as much as possible.

For the unions, even work is divided into good and bad like debt according to Draghi. Bad work (in general non-standard work) is presented as the sin from which the Holy Protector must save us.

The precarious – descending '' down the branches '' to the undeclared workers – are the compassionate victims of the neoliberal and globalized Evil One; even before being saved, they must be redeemed, because there is no salvation outside of a particular employment relationship, with the stability that is guaranteed, in the event of dismissal, by a well-oriented judge.

Then, in the case of the dignity decree, the moment comes when we realize that those rules do not favor employment, but destroy it. And they change into disguise, trying not to make it known because the sacred canons of the faith of their fathers cannot be questioned.

After all, washing one's hands is also part of the tradition: dixi et servavi animam meam.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/perche-il-primo-maggio-e-diventata-una-festa-del-santo-patrono/ on Sat, 01 May 2021 09:35:14 +0000.