Truth and lies about the statutory minimum wage
The debate on the minimum wage cannot ignore the data: 81% of Italian workers receive more than 9 euros an hour and only 1% are paid less than 8 euros. The analysis of Giovanni Assi, national councilor of Unimpresa
In Italy the minimum wages are guaranteed by a vast and widespread system of collective bargaining, which, at the end of 2022, sees 946 national collective labor agreements filed with the Cnel and covers, out of a total of approximately 13.2 million private employees, 12.8 million people or 97% of employees. 81% of these workers have a collective bargaining agreement with an entry wage above 9 euros, 18% between 8 and 9 euros, while only 1% of workers have a contract that establishes an hourly wage below 8 euros . The introduction of the so-called minimum wage at 9 euros, therefore, would mean bringing a monthly increase for this potential 1% of workers on average just over 50 euros net per month, while the real and only beneficiary would be the State, which between the increase in Irpef and the contributory one would bring 1.5 billion euros into its coffers.
THE MINIMUM WAGE IS AN ELECTION CAMPAIGN TOOL
It is therefore clear that the issue of the minimum wage is used only as an electoral campaign tool playing as always on the skin of workers and businesses, since doing so would only produce an increase in the cost of labor estimated at over 6.7 billion and which would a negative impact mainly on small and medium enterprises, drastically reducing their competitiveness especially in international markets with consequences that are not difficult to imagine: reduction of manpower and further recourse to the "undeclared" real social scourge.
The issue of the minimum wage does not at all satisfy the real issue that exists in our country today, namely the loss of the purchasing power of wages. The function of the minimum wage would be useless and perhaps harmful. If we really want to recover the value of wages, government policies that have a structural impact on the tax wedge are needed, and last May Unimpresa presented three concrete proposals to the Labor Committee of the Chamber of Deputies.
WHAT TO DO
First of all, it is necessary to expand the corporate welfare tool, raising the fringe benefit threshold to 3,000 euros for all employees and workers with an income similar to that of employment, regardless of the presence of a dependent daughter or spouse, as, instead , inexplicably established in the last work decree converted into law.
In order to increase the purchasing power of employees and, at the same time, to stimulate productivity, it is necessary to eliminate taxes, both paid by workers and by companies, on productivity bonuses up to the annual amount of 6,000 euros .
In order, then, to stimulate second-level bargaining and to allow companies to integrate economic and regulatory institutions governed by national collective agreements, it would be essential to totally detax the wage increases deriving from second-level bargaining. Thus, for example, if a collective bargaining agreement establishes a minimum wage for a certain level of 10 euros per hour and the company, as a result of a second-level contract defined with the trade union organisations, pays that worker a wage of 12 euros per hour, those two additional euros should be considered totally exempt from contributions and taxes. This with the aim of actually bringing two euros more net into the worker's pocket and actually costing the company two euros without further burdens.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/verita-e-bugie-sul-salario-minimo-legale/ on Tue, 18 Jul 2023 05:02:23 +0000.