Daniela Fumarola.
by Chiara Pelizzoni and Francesco Anfossi
March 8 is an opportunity to take stock of the female condition in the world of work, between pay gaps, difficulties of conciliation and career obstacles with Daniela Fumarola. A crystal roof, he explains, that sooner or later it will give in, especially if there will be units and sharing of the other half of the sky. The new CISL national secretary has dedicated all his life to denouncing inequalities and enhancing the female contribution in the labor market, and here explains the main obstacles to overcome.
Fumarola secretary, the INPS data confirm that the employment and remuneration gap between men and women in Italy is still very large. Italy has lost 24 positions in the Global Gender Gap Report of the World Economic Forum. Women perceive on average 20 percent less salary. What are the main causes of this disparity?
«The heart of the problem are the difficulties of life-work conciliation and the poor sharing of the care work, so women often do not look for work, many of those who work” choose “a part-time, the use of parental leave is strongly major among women, many resign at the time of the first pregnancy, and most in the workplace avoid extraordinary, trips, etc. All this also explains the remuneration disparity and the consequent pension gap. It is a self-discrimination, much more serious than a simple discrimination, because it is more subtle ».
Women are more educated than men, but struggle to access the top roles. Only 20 percent of company managers is made up of women. What measures propose the CISL to promote a greater female presence in the apical positions?
«Women do not have less preparation and skills compared to colleagues men. Quite the opposite. But, as already mentioned, maternity and the work of care in general represent the greatest obstacle for the development of the career, given that in Italy a woman out of five leaves work after her first child. It is difficult to break through the crystal roof if you remain stuck to the floor. There are also social and cultural prejudices that brake the careers of many workers, especially for the same seniority and productivity “.
One of the central knots of the female question is the conciliation between work and private life. Which policies do you think fundamental to support women in this balance?
«It is no coincidence that unfortunately Italy has the lowest female employment rate in Europe. One in two women does not work in our country. First of all, it is necessary to encourage the entry and permanence of the workers in the labor market both by enhancing the services for children and the elderly and promoting with incentives the bargaining to support all the companies and all public bodies that introduce a different organization of the work, focusing on flexibility measures in the time and organizational in order to encourage better life-work and sharing of care work, starting from the agile work, with the attention that used balanced by workers and workers ».
What actions would you put on the pitch not only not to penalize but to enhance the motherhood of a woman who works?
«We must support the birth rate, which is a real emergency in the country, and at the same time support mothers workers. It remains central to encourage the use of parental leave by fathers, increasing their paid share, as the CISL for some time has been asking for. The legislation has seen improvements, especially in the last budget law, but as long as a substantial part of the periods of leave remains paid at 30%, women will still always be used to use them because, in addition to cultural motivations, usually in families you will tend to renounce the lower income, in a vicious circle. The contribution exemption is also in the right direction to strengthen the paycheck of the workers with two children and, since 2027, with three children, to prevent them from leaving the work. The budget law has made the measure structural. But, in the light of the data on women who leave the work to the first pregnancy, because the measure has a significant impact should be extended to women with a single child, all the more in the formula adopted that foresees it for income not exceeding 40,000 euros. The single and universal check must then be strengthened. But above all you have to enhance the services for children and the elderly. In Italy there are less than 200 thousand children attending a nursery school. Seven out of one hundred do not even attend the kindergarten. But they also need full time at school and summer centers, you cannot stop at the age group 0-3 years. The gap between the regions of the North and those of the Center -Sud on the social services level is still serious, a truly unacceptable gap. The law on non self -sufficiency must also be implemented well and quickly ».
The gender gap is also reflected in pensions, with medium lower checks for women. What interventions would be necessary to correct this social iniquity?
«Dealing with the difficulties of women at work also means facing the pension gap that strikes them. Women and young people are penalized by discontinuous careers and entirely contributory calculation. The conditions for a guarantee pension must be built, covering social security holes, extending and making complementary pension more advantageous, counting women one year more contributions for each child. We must aim for an intergenerational pact that on the one hand does not compete with young and old in the workplace and on the other it makes the social security system more flexible and inclusive. The pension reform must be accompanied by a turnover plan based on adequate active policies, which ensure targeted qualification and orientation in the labor market of each territory “.
Are you in favor of the pink quotas?
“Of course we are in favor. The CISL was among the first trade union organizations to guarantee gender shares in all bodies of the Confederation. But compulsory shares are not enough to solve the problem. As mentioned, it is necessary to give women the possibility of growing and making a career like colleagues men in all institutional, social and economic contexts ».
Is it true that women are more injured at work? Is there less protection?
«It is a serious phenomenon that has grown in recent years, in all work areas as well as our report on safety at work has also highlighted. In italine accidents and occupational diseases often concern many working women. We have proposed a security pact between institutions and social partners to make much more training and prevention in the workplace. And it is necessary to start from the school because young people will be future entrepreneurs and workers, also putting new technologies at the service of safety ».
She is recently driving the CISL: what are your priorities for the union in the coming years?
«We will continue to represent the concrete needs and requests of workers, pensioners, young people and women who today ask us for new protections and new rights, but above all respect for the dignity of the person and their work. The first emergency remains to grow the country, raise wages and pensions, decrease taxes to the weakest and the middle class, reopen the table on the social security reform, unlock public and private investments with the priority of consolidating active policies and raising work quality and safety. To do all this, a pact between responsible subjects is needed, putting the social reformism on common strategic objectives at the center and with an evolution of social and industrial relations in the participatory sense “.Precariousness and underpaid work are two problems that affect young people in particular. How does CISL mean to protect the new generations in the labor market?
«We must extend good bargaining in the sectors in which it is not applied, fight those forms of exploitation such as false internships, the false VAT number, the spuries cooperatives. But above all it is needed the greatest investment ever on skills, training and active policies, towards a new statute of the person, with an institutional and subsidiary network that ensures to all income support, training and orientation in the labor market. Temporary work has been decreasing for 3 years, in conjunction also with the lack of staff that companies report in one case out of two, as the Excelsior data tell us, but unfortunately to end up in the trap of precarious and underpaid works, as well as to remain blocked in the Neet basin, are the less prepared young people and not in possession of the skills required by the market “.
The union must adapt to the transformations of the world of work, from digitization to the Gig Economy. What strategies are you putting on the field to respond to these new challenges?
«We do not fear the challenge of new technologies or artificial intelligence. But we must guide and not undergo the changes, accompany them with the right formation that must become a universal and subjective right-duty, a commitment for all workers. An evolution that we must carry on in the bargaining as they are already doing many categories. The machines will never be able to replace creativity, sensitivity, the value of the person. But it is above all a participatory evolution of industrial relations, as established by the proposed law strongly desired by the CISL, which will now go to the Senate for the definitive approval, which will allow to Establishing the principle according to which workers’ representatives have the right to participate in the implementation, management and evaluation of the effects of AI on the quality of working life to further strengthen collective bargaining. As for the Gig-Economy, we are committed to building new forms of representation to unite the islands of this archipelago and transform them into an organized community ».
What message would you like to send to women who are struggling today to establish themselves in the world of work?
“Not to surrender in the face of the many difficulties, and to feel master of one’s destiny by participating without fear, entering the decision places, fighting against all forms of discrimination and above all not to self-level”.
