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The New Centre Right (NCD), a
junior partner in Premier Matteo Renzi's coalition government,
on Tuesday threatened to rebel over a decree that is a central
part of the executive's labour-market reforms.
"At the moment there is no agreement on the labour decree,
we're not voting for it," senior NCD lawmaker Fabrizio Cicchitto
said.
The decree, which parliament will start examining Tuesday,
is part of a drive to simplify Italy's current myriad of
different work contracts and benefits and help encourage firms
to take on workers, especially young ones.
It includes changes to set employers a limit of five
temporary contracts that they can offer new staff members in
their first three years with the company.
Under the original version of the legislation, the limit
was eight temporary contracts in the three-year period, after
which the job must become permanent.
But this was brought down to five contracts due to concerns
within Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD) that otherwise
it could further increase the already high levels of job
insecurity for people entering the labour market.
The NCD, however, preferred the original version of the
decree, which has been approved by cabinet and now needs to
ratified by parliament.
"There is an open debate within the PD and we are awaiting
clarification on this issue," said Cicchitto.
The government says the decree will help combat
unemployment, which has reached a record high of 13%, with
over four in 10 under-25s out of work.
Renzi is reportedly considering putting the decree to a
confidence vote to force critics within the coalition to back
down or risk sinking the executive.
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