Italy was on a bridge when Giorgia Meloni convened a Council of Ministers this holiday Monday, on its first May Day, to approve a government decree on labor matters that has deeply irritated the unions. This is a partial labor reform that, among other things, ends the citizen income of the 5 Star Movement (M5E), favors temporary contracts and reduces the tax burden on certain salaries only until the end of the year. All after a brief dialogue with the workers' organizations, which have already announced demonstrations.
The unions have not been slow to see this decision as a provocation. Especially for the date chosen, the day of the workers, which is very important in Italy. “About 365 days of the year, should the Government convene the Council of Ministers precisely today? Today is the labor party, not the government's. The Government must think about work every day of the year, not just on May Day," criticized Maurizio Landini, the secretary of the CGIL, the country's main union.
The tension has accompanied the entire day. Initially, Meloni was supposed to organize a press conference to explain the measures, but in the end she has decided to replace it with a video released on her social networks in which she is "proud" that the Government has decided to celebrate this day "with facts, and not with words”. This Sunday, the unions already protested for being summoned at night in the Chigi Palace, the seat of the Executive, to contain the content of the reform, and above all for choosing such an "anti-educational" day to carry it out. The Prime Minister responded ironically that many employees also work today, starting with those who make the traditional May Day concert possible in Rome's Piazza San Juan de Lateran, a huge party for which several streets of the capital are cut off.
Meloni, who in the September elections managed to win the vote of many workers who previously preferred leftist options, has been trying for some time to get across the message that the labor issue is something that is no longer dealt with only by progressive forces. In fact, in March, she became the first leader of an Italian government to participate in the CGIL congress, which was to be the presentation of the new leader of the Democratic Party (PD), Elly Schlein. She was welcomed to the beat of the partisan Bella Ciao anthem and, instead of leaving, she gladly accepted the challenge.
The main measure of the decree law is a reduction in the tax wedge, or the difference between the salary paid by an employer and what the worker gets, so that workers who earn up to 35,000 euros per year increase their salary. But the unions see it as insufficient, because it is only until the end of the year, a measure financed with the deviation of the deficit of 3,400 million euros in 2023 that has just been approved by Parliament.
It also ends – as already announced – definitively with the citizenship income, the benefit system that was the star measure of the previous M5E government that more than a million households in Italy receive today, which will be replaced with a system that they can Low-income families with disabled or elderly people in their care benefit from monthly aid of 500 euros, in addition to others for rent. The right had attacked the citizen income for years because they considered that it did not encourage work, but in southern Italy, especially in the Campania region, it has become an indispensable tool to make ends meet, and the social earthquake that could result from this removal could be important. In addition, Meloni relaxes the rules for temporary contracts, which can be renewed for up to 36 months, and promotes the hiring of young people who do not study or work with a tax reduction for the workers who hire them.
