Contracts, here are all the minimum wages (other than the minimum wage at Conte & Schlein)
Minimum wages and tabular minimums in the major national employment contracts: facts and numbers in the in-depth analysis by Silvano Veronese of the Kuliscioff foundation
The debate on the proposed bill for a minimum wage set by law has been strongly polarized in terms of taking sides and not of comparison on the data and on the real salary situations, which are quite varied given the "wild west" that characterizes our labor market and the widespread and diversified national and integrative bargaining system. From many comments it is clear, for example, that the various remuneration treatments in the different sectors in relation to the hours of performance per year and per month are not well known.
For example, for the majority of the over 16 million workers in the private sector (excluding those employed in domestic services and part of the agricultural world) the average paid days are 235 but in catering and accommodation services the paid days are 143 (Observatory data INPS ). From this derives the profound diversity from sector to sector in the gross annual salary but also in the number and salary values of paid days from which the value of the gross hourly salary can be obtained through the divisor provided by the individual collective bargaining agreements – as an estimate. It is difficult, if not impossible (except knowing that the phenomenon exists), to evaluate how many days paid "under the table" supplement the days paid regularly in certain sectors.
We have already explained in the recent past that the "salary question" is not just a question of insufficient minimum wages and lower than the 9 (nine) euros per hour proposed by the current parliamentary opposition (which also affects a very limited number of workers) but it is on the other hand, a situation inferior to the comparable reality of the major European countries, such as the insufficient link between wages and productivity growth (although this is also lower than that achieved by the aforementioned major EU countries), as well as the lack of renewal for years of many ( too many) Ccnl of various categories, it is the fraudulent irregular application of the treatments of the Ccnl in various companies, it is the situation of the "pirate" contracts with conditions "in pejus" of those foreseen by the serious Ccnl, it is the widespread precariousness of which Many workers suffer who work non-continuously, with compulsory "part time" hours, with unconfirmed "term" relationships, such as false VAT numbers, this is the situation in some sectors (e.g. domestic work and in certain areas of agricultural work) of "non-contractualisation" of the employment relationship whose terms are decided unilaterally by the employer (often not companies in the strict sense).
These are all issues that for the most part cannot be resolved by the "shortcut" of setting a minimum wage by law but by much more far-reaching measures and above all by union bargaining.
However, we come to the proposal of the bill by Schlein , Conte, Fratoianni, Calenda and others with a non-secondary premise: the Ccnl do not indicate an hourly value in the salary item but a monthly one and therefore the translation of the latter into hourly salary takes into account various elements of which we will talk about later.
In Article 1, the proposal of the bill says that "entrepreneurial employers are required to pay the workers referred to in Article 2094 of the Civil Code an overall remuneration that is sufficient and proportionate to the quantity and quality of the work performed…." while in art. 2 the proposal explains that "total remuneration sufficient and proportionate to the quantity and quality of the work performed means the overall treatment including the minimum table, additional monthly salaries, any seniority increases, fixed and continuous allowances due in relation to the ordinary service, all for an amount no less than that envisaged by the category collective bargaining agreement stipulated by the most representative employers' and trade union organizations at a national level and adds to the following paragraph that this overall hourly salary established by the collective collective bargaining agreement (which however does not establishes because it fixes the monthly one) cannot in any case be less than 9 (nine) euros/hour.
Contrary to what the former INPS President Tridico erroneously states, the bill proposed by Schlein, Conte and others never speaks of a "table minimum" but of an "overall minimum" made up of those fixed items just mentioned and that the salary must be equated to the quality of the work performed (this statement recognizes that this measure must be diversified in relation to the working and productive quality of each individual category, which – however – only union bargaining can also evaluate in relation to productivity and not the imposition by the legislator). He also adds that, without prejudice to the minimum imposed by law, the remuneration is aligned with the quantity of the service, therefore it is recognized that a reduced monthly or annual working time for various reasons, i.e. that an intermittent and non-continuous performance, determines a limited or more remuneration low, compared to the ordinary one foreseen by a normal timetable, based on the week, month, year.
How can we say, then, that there are millions of "precarious" workers with insufficient wages (for the reasons mentioned above) who will be able to benefit from this bill which only concerns minimum hourly wages and not hours (reduced ) monthly or annual performance?
However, the "hourly rate" deriving from the gross and overall annual/monthly salary is already today higher than 9 euros/hour as envisaged by almost all serious national collective labor agreements (signed by the most representative organisations) for all professional figures and levels. salaries including the last one, as indicated in the table below:
These are low professional figures or profiles that are normally the most used in the individual categories, BUT if we want to refer to the last two lowest levels of the professional classification of each individual category (in reality little used, in some categories the last one is never used if not to set the value 100 of the parametric scale 100/200), the overall economic treatment indicated above is lowered by approximately 1 euro/h. In this case only in the Cleaning/multiservices and private security sector the salary is less than 9 euros/h.
If we refer to the last professional and salary level (which in some categories is not used) and which in others is used as "entry salary only for a few months before the worker moves on to the higher level, there are five categories that record a overall salary treatment of less than 9 euros/h: public establishments, tourism, textile clothing, multi-service cleaning, private security. The main path is that of negotiation to adapt these values to the more usual ones mentioned above.
Certainly, in these sectors (partially also in others) "pirate" contracts, "black" or irregular or non-"contractualized" work are widespread, as happens in domestic work and part of agriculture. These are clear violations which will not be remedied by setting a "sufficient" salary by law because the unfaithful employer (entrepreneur or otherwise) accustomed to violating and evading serious national collective labor agreements will continue to do so even with the law as happens with the fiscal and tax law. There is no other solution than the appeal to the Judiciary.
The setting by law of a minimum wage would benefit these professional figures earning less than 9 euros per hour, located at the last step – in a more or less contractually regular manner – of the professional ladder and salary classification but would penalize workers placed in the levels higher (middle, medium-high and high of the salary classification) already subject in Italy (unlike France, Germany, Spain, Benelux and Scandinavian countries) to a certain salary flattening, unless they are the subject of a recalculation on the basis of the parametric 100/200 but – at this point – many employers (the "owners" of small businesses, very widespread in Italy) would find it more convenient to abandon serious collective agreements to settle on the legal minimum, taking into account that in the Ccnl, in addition to the overall minimum wage for each level or qualification (table wage plus other general and continuous fixed items) other economic benefits are provided such as company-contracted production bonuses, collective superminimum wages, various allowances such as for the canteen, social security and supplementary healthcare paid from the company but consider salary, company welfare and increases for weekend and night work.
Comrade Professor was right. Tarantelli, barbarously killed by the "Red Brigades", when he stated that no "political" institution can replace collective bargaining between the social partners which combines the reasons of production and productivity with those of the redistribution of profit in balanced terms through salary negotiation reported to the professional merits and social needs of the worker, but added that "a system of industrial relations and therefore the Ccnl are a complex system of rules and not a simple system of wage regulation. Wanting to reduce it to this (like the proposal of the Schlein, Conte, Calenda, Fratoianni bill) affirms a very limited vision of much more complex socio-economic relations and an attempt (not new) to marginalize the role of intermediate bodies
Unfortunately, the latter do very little to return to being protagonists of economic, industrial and social processes, starting from their job which is to renew the Ccnl and fight for their full and regular application in every working sector.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/contratti-ecco-tutti-i-salari-minimi-altro-che-salario-minimo-alla-conte-schlein/ on Sat, 30 Sep 2023 05:49:27 +0000.