Premier Matteo Renzi on Friday lashed out at unions after Susanna Camusso, the head of Italy's largest trade union federation CGIL, accused him of being a Thatcherite as a big row over the government's labour reforms rumbled on.
"Where were you in the years that produced the greatest injustice, (the divide) between those who do and don't have jobs, between those with permanent and temp contracts?" Renzi said. "We don't want Thatcher's labor market, but a just one, with equal rights for all citizens," said the premier.
His government, said Renzi, wants to defend the rights of those who have none.
"We're thinking of those...who are condemned to a lifetime with no job security, a situation the unions have contributed to by worrying only about the rights of some and not all," Renzi said.
The premier's signature Jobs Act, which has been approved at the committee stage, progressively raises safeguards for new hires, slashes the plethora of temp contracts currently plaguing entry workers, and establishes a minimum wage and universal unemployment benefit.
But it also contains a key measure that would scale back a landmark jobs protection regulation - Article 18 of the 1970 Workers Stature guaranteeing people unjustly sacked the right to their job back - for new hires.
The government says this clause discourages firms from offering workers regular, steady contracts as it makes it very hard from them to get rid of a staff member once on the books.
This has been blamed for high youth unemployment, with more than one in four under-25s out of a job, and for the fact that most new entries to the job market are hired on freelance or temporary contracts that provide few rights and low job security. But unions are outraged by the proposed change and there is the danger of a rift opening within Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD) over the issue, with former party chair and premier-designate Pier Luigi Bersani spearheading internal dissent.
"We will present many amendments, and not just on the right to reinstatement in case of unfair dismissal," Bersani said. "As things stand, we are merely adding more job insecurity to existing insecurity".
Renzi is bordering on crushing workers' rights in his reformist zeal, Bersani said.
"New hires must enjoy the same protections as their more senior colleagues, including the right to reinstatement after unfair dismissal, which exists throughout Europe," Bersani argued.
"We must strike a balance between capital and labor - that is the essence of being reformist," he concluded. "Renzi is a little too focused on the Margaret Thatcher model (of labor reform)," said Camusso, whose left-wing union traditionally has strong ties with the PD. "We are defending ourselves, because those who would abolish Article 18 are abolishing workers' freedom. We believe reform is possible, but by making sure everyone has the same rights and the same full-time, permanent contracts".
Under the change the government is proposing, newly hired workers would be given compensation, instead of being rehired, if a court rules they were unjustly dismissed - unless discrimination was the reason for the sacking.
PD Deputy Secretary Debora Serracchiani said Friday that provisions for worker reinstatement could be added in later versions of the Jobs Act.
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