«The vote is our revolt. Democratic. Putting a cross is the simplest and most revolutionary thing we can do ». The secretary of the CGIL Maurizio Landini continues to go around Italy to support his 4 referendums. «I see a great participation, the goal of the quorum has not lived in the air, it is possible to reach it. We must continue like this, to inform ».
The first criticism is the very comprehensibility of the referendum questions. Totally incomprehensible.
«To the apparent complexity of the rules we oppose the absolute concreteness of the problems we want to solve through the repeal of wrong laws that have made the work precarious, poor and fatal. We want stable, safe, with dignified wages, which strengthens democracy by promoting participation and active citizenship. To explain this concreteness you have to be among people, in the squares and in the workplace, building social ties with worlds and cultures even different from ours ».
What structural changes would be produced for workers and businesses in case of victory of the yes?
«First of all, millions of workers and workers and the new generations would regain protection against unjust and illegitimate layoffs stronger, both in small and large companies, would exceed the condition of permanent precariousness, would obtain greater safety in the workplace. In addition, it would be a huge sign of change for all that policy that in recent years has priority the market, finance, the cut of public spending, thus producing an increase in inequalities, a concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and a reduction in unprecedented investments “.
According to the supporters of the No, the reinstatement of employees dismissed is already foreseen thanks to changes to the Jobs Act of the Consulta and the Conte government. The protection would only concern collective layoffs (a minimum part of economic layoffs). In short, very modest effects.
“They are wrong. Today there is no reinstatement in the event of individual dismissal not only in collective layoffs, but also for economic-organizational reasons, in many disciplinary layoffs, even on the occasion of layoffs during periods of illness. I feel like saying that those who do not want to change those rules do not make the interest of workers, but of those companies that instead of investing in people, their intelligence and on more cooperative and participatory organizational models, instead use the tool of dismissal as a threat “.
The secretary of the CISL Fumarola maintains that while touching significant themes, the questions are anti -operating and do not offer effective solutions to the structural problems of work in Italy.
«Of Antistoric I see only a rampant precariousness, of the laws that condemn young people to have fewer rights than those who preceded them. If ours is one of the countries with the lowest wages in Europe, it is also because we have chosen to reduce the set of protections of the world of work by legislative way, we have chosen to compete on the cost of labor rather than on innovation.
With the victory of the yes in some cases there would be counterproductive effects: the maximum limit of indemnity from 36 to 24 months would be reduced.
“Try to ask a worker unjustly fired if he prefers to be reinstated in his workplace or prefers to be fired with compensation. The CGIL is fighting so that the work is not reduced to a commodity ».
Is it reasonable for the fourth question to impose a risk on which it has no technical competence to the client company?
“Most accidents and deaths at work happen because there is a sick system of doing business, which is based on contracts and subcontracts, where the logic of profit and exploitation of work prevails. Our goal, operating on prevention, is that of zero deaths at work. With the referendum we ask that the civil liability in solidarity in the field of health and safety, on the entire chain of contracts, remains for the client companies “.
There are those who claim that with the referendums the CGIL has increased the fracture of the union unit. How does it respond?
«Contrasting precariousness, extending the same rights to all the people who to live must work means reconstructing the conditions for a culture and a practice of solidarity. Without which neither the union nor the unity of the whole world of work cannot exist ».
Do you like the new Pope Leo XIV? What do you think of his inspiration for Leo XIII, the Pope of the Rerum Novarum?
«I appreciated the pontificate of Pope Francis and I found the first words of Pope Leo XIV in continuity with those of his predecessor. The reference to disarmament and peace first of all, theme on which we find ourselves in perfect harmony with the Catholic world. The reference to Rerum Novarum, which I know, to social issues and the relationship between work and new digital technologies are very important and also represent our daily mission ».
