How to use social safety nets (well)
Anti relocation decree and more: the social safety nets must favor the mobility of work. Giuliano Cazzola's analysis
When it will be possible for him in a context of extraordinary commitments, Mario Draghi will need to devote his attention and his practical sense to the issues of work which – in the opinion of the writer – are taking a very different turn from the innovative one contained in the programmatic discourse. carried out by the premier on February 17 on the occasion of the vote of confidence. We remember the words of the president.
“The government will have to protect workers, all workers, but it would be a mistake to protect all economic activities equally. Some will have to change, even radically. And the choice of which activities to protect and which to accompany in the change is the difficult task that economic policy will have to face in the coming months ”.
After underlining the decisive role of the extraordinary instruments adopted also through the SURE program and the cost paid in particular by young people with regard to employment, Draghi directly indicated the lines of a new labor policy: "Active labor policies are central . In order for them to be immediately operational, it is necessary to improve existing instruments, such as the reallocation allowance, by strengthening the training policies of employed and unemployed workers. The staffing and digital endowments of employment centers in agreement with the regions also need to be strengthened. This project is already part of the National Recovery and Resilience Program but it will have to be anticipated immediately ”.
It was to be assumed that these were the general lines of the document on the reform of shock absorbers presented by the Minister of Labor Andrea Orlando to the social partners at the end of July. Unfortunately we had to note – reading the 6 pages of the note – that the labor policy of the future months – in which a robust recovery is announced – risks being conditioned by the logic that supported – for about 500 days – the blocking of layoffs and the 'delivery of the cig in derogation.
In the first place, the proposals have the defect of making the measures adopted extraordinarily in the covid-19 season structural, extending the cig also to micro-companies up to 5 employees and replacing the ordinary intervention with the exceptionality of the use of the cig in derogation (which would be eliminated). The extension should take place on an insurance basis, but for the first two years the coverage will be borne by public finance. An equally serious aspect emerges from the invasion of the field by shock absorbers in constant employment relationship compared to those that intervene after its termination.
To signal this overflow are the two new reasons: proposed cessation of activity and judicial liquidation. While the classic reasons (reorganization, restructuring, conversion of the company) presuppose that a company initiates processes of change and reorganization, at the end of which it remains on the market with the same identity (and therefore the continuity of the employment relationship is justified through the Cigs for those employees who do not end up redundant) in the two new reasons we have to do with a transition phase towards the cessation of the activity.
From bad to worse, extraordinary layoffs can also be requested for transition processes by SMEs with fewer than 15 employees. This is the "philosophy" of the reform: to keep, as long as possible, the workers linked to the company by accompanying it in constant relationship, now fake, until the certification of his death, instead of strengthening active labor policies through the check of relocation. Moreover, the government completed the first phase of the PNRR – accompanying it with important reforms necessary for its implementation – by acquiring the first tranche of funding from the European Commission.
At this moment, the analysis of the phase that the economy is going through is decisive in order to clarify the context in which a crucial intervention in the labor market takes place in the pursuit of growth and development objectives. This is why the reform of the social safety nets cannot be considered a remedy for overcoming – between now and the end of the year – the freeze on layoffs, aimed at maintaining "by other means" the redundant manpower linked to companies even if they have no prospects. This is the idea that has taken root in the employment policies implemented by Conte 2, so much so that the former minister Nunzia Catalfo did not hesitate to declare that, in the absence of a reform of the social safety nets, the prohibition of layoffs should be reinstated.
The estimates of the technicians assume costs of 6-7 billion, which would rise to 8 billion also considering the interventions on unemployment benefits, against cover currently insured for only 1.5 billion from the suspension of the cashback. But the line is that of Maurizio Landini: “Shock absorbers must be the way to choose before opening procedures for staff reduction”.
It would no longer be a question of using that income support instrumentation in view of a recovery, in more or less long times in relation to the reorganization and reconversion processes to be faced. Social safety nets should also be used to prolong the agony of a production site, only to maintain the legal continuity of work relationships that have actually already ended. Thinking about it is the line that the unions carry out in that group of companies that have become, even at the media level, the sign of what has happened and can still happen after the release of the layoffs.
To put it bluntly, we are thinking of a reform of the social safety nets aimed at solving the problems of the employees of companies (primarily multinationals) that want to close, not of those looking for manpower to hire to continue working.
That this is the strategy of some sectors of the government can also be understood from the examination of the draft decree against relocations. Looking at the identification of the companies to which the new provisions would apply, it would seem an ad hoc decree (only the indication of the companies would be missing, otherwise it could be called the Whirlpool decree or even better the Gkn decree). Every workplace is sacred. But the near future of the economy does not depend on how those disputes will end.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/come-utilizzare-bene-gli-ammortizzatori-sociali/ on Sun, 05 Sep 2021 05:25:07 +0000.