Renzi's Jobs Act to up protection for new hires, CGIL says Article 18 change 'scalp for EU hawks'

Premier Matteo Renzi's government presented an amendment to its Jobs Act on Wednesday which will see people get rising levels of protection the longer they are with a firm after being hired. The amendment said newly hired people should have "open-ended contracts". At the moment most new entrants to the job market are hired on temporary or freelance contracts.

However, newly hired workers will not have the right to their jobs back, but will get compensation, if a court rules that they have been unjustly fired by their companies, the rapporteur of an enabling law linked to the Jobs Acts said Wednesday.

"There is a revision of the protection (for workers) with open-ended contracts," said rapporteur Maurizio Sacconi.

The legislation seeks to change Article 18 of the 1970 Workers Statute, which currently states that companies with over 15 employees that fire someone without just cause must give them their job back. Many past Italian governments have tried to amend Article 18 on the grounds that it makes companies reluctant to offer regular steady contracts, as it is so hard to get rid of a staff member once on the books.
This has been blamed for high unemployment levels, especially among young people, and the fact that most new entrants to the job market are hired on freelance or temporary contracts that give few rights and low job security.
But in they past Italy's trade unions have always managed to fend off attempts to change a regulation that they say guarantees a basic right.

Abrogating Article 18 of the Worker's Statute to lower job protection is "a scalp to take to the EU's free-market hawks," the leader of Italy's largest union CGIL said Wednesday.

The European Union's free-marketeers and fiscal hawks, as well as the European Central Bank, have frequently called for an end to the unusually high protection Italy's payroll workers in larger companies enjoy.

 Renzi on Tuesday said Italy's labour market regulations must change to end the "apartheid" that sees generally older workers in steady positions enjoy cast-iron job security, while young people have little or no protection, if they have a job at all. "Labour rights must not be the same as today at the end of the (government's) 1,000 days," Renzi told the Lower House as his presented his programme for the government until the end of the parliamentary term in 2018. "There is nothing more unfair than dividing people between first-class and second-class citizens. The world of work based on apartheid must be overcome".
Italy's unemployment levels have climbed to over 12%, with over four in 10 under-25s out of work. 
 The amendment the government presented on Wednesday said that this enabling law would also simplify the labour market by reducing the current myriad of contracts workers can be offered.
   

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