Fund new skills and expansion contract, here is the challenge for the unions
Alessandra Servidori's post on the role of trade unions in this season where different strategies are emerging to stem unemployment and relaunch employment
We hear more and more often about the concrete concern of how to stem the bleeding of jobs when the ban on dismissal ends – very soon – and we will still have to inaugurate active politics.
A novelty in the field of social safety nets is the expansion contract which – heir to the expansive solidarity contract – allows not only to facilitate the generational turnover but also the alternation of professionalism. Introduced in 2019 in an experimental form, it allows you to manage redundancy situations with the accompaniment to retirement of older colleagues and for this reason it is considered by companies an important tool, even more so now that it includes first of all the retraining of workers, which will make use of also of the New Skills Fund. This contractual instrument provides for a layoff period of 18 months, even if not continuous; the reduction of the working hours which cannot consist of a weekly or monthly percentage lower than 30%. As regards, instead, the generational change and the accompaniment towards retirement of the elderly, the access threshold was initially for companies over 500 employees, although for 2021 organizations with at least 250 employees can also use the tool. workers, limited only to the accompanying pension (and therefore not to the redundancy fund for training); certainly, therefore, the rule will find more widespread application in early retirement. And we are thinking of further lowering the number of company employees to favor this tool considered a good social safety net not separated from active policies.
With regard to the Skills Fund, the objective is to allow companies to implement specific agreements for the reshaping of working hours for changed organizational and production needs of the company, on the basis of which part of the working time is used for paths formative. The New Skills Fund covers the costs relating to training hours, including the related social security and welfare contributions and, thanks to the changes introduced, it can also be used to facilitate the implementation of redeployment paths for workers. This Fund for the training of workers has a dowry of 730 million, which can be increased with resources made available by the Regions, by the national and regional operational programs (PON and POR) of the European Social Fund ( ESF ) and by the Joint Funds interprofessional, and that in the intentions of the previous government could also make use of the European funds of the Recovery Plan .
But the game is still open on this.
The fact is that the company intending to access the expansion contract will have to start a consultation procedure with the trade unions, highlighting the causes of the reduction in working hours and the workers concerned. Compared to the defensive solidarity contract, through which an average time reduction of no more than 60% and a maximum individual reduction of 70% is allowed, in the expansion contract the maximum limit for recourse to solidarity is lower, but you can decide to place some workers in suspension at zero hours for a maximum period of one and a half years.
The pension slide – which can involve workers who are up to five years after the start of old-age or early retirement – seems to date the most interesting element for companies that decide to take advantage of the expansion contract, as it will allow them to make a turnaround. over generational by hiring young people with greater digital skills, accompanying the elderly without particular trauma to retire at the same time because, during the waiting period, they will be able to take advantage of a check whose amount is equal to the pension accrued up to the moment of termination of the relationship. From a pension point of view, the slide allowed by the expansion contract is cheaper than the allowance provided for those who aspire to early retirement, because they are subjects with greater contributions and, consequently, the right to a higher amount.
The problem is that in Italy most companies have fewer than 15 employees and it is difficult to reach 50. So it is clear that the union will have to work to structure and encourage groups of small and medium-sized enterprises in the sector and sector to join in order to take advantage of of these tools.
The fact is that all this provides for a new and robust proximity bargaining: a challenge that calls employers 'and workers' organizations to identify the most suitable instrument in any case to relaunch active policies and extraordinary solidarity governance.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/fondo-nuove-competenze-e-contratto-di-espansione-ecco-la-sfida-per-i-sindacati/ on Wed, 19 May 2021 14:45:47 +0000.