As the Senate on Wednesday began debating Premier Matteo Renzi's signature labour reform bill, or Jobs Act, the government remained undecided on whether to file an amendment to its own legislaton. "We're still thinking it through," Labor Minister Giuliano Poletti said earlier Labor Undersecretary Teresa Bellanova added the government is weighing filing a motion instead of an amendment, and that it doesn't seem as though it will be forced into calling a confidence vote on its labour bill. "There is no such hypothesis at present," she said.
It emerged on Tuesday that the government may present an amendment to its own labour reform bill on the basis of a document approved at a meeting Monday of the PD executive, in which a minority tried but failed to rally wider consensus against a measure contained in the premier's bill.
The 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. The bone of contention is a measure that would scale back a landmark jobs protection regulation - Article 18 of the 1970 Workers Statute guaranteeing the right to be reinstated after unfair dismissal - for new hires. The measure is opposed by a minority within Renzi's PD and by Italy's biggest and most leftwing trade union federation, the CGIL.
Initially, the Jobs Act said that Article 18 would remain in force for people already in jobs and would only apply to new hires in cases of discrimination. But the document approved by the PD on Monday said that the guarantee should also apply in cases when a newly hired worker is dismissed on disciplinary grounds that a court rules are unfounded.
Renato Brunetta, the House whip for the center-right Forza Italia (FI) party of ex premier Silvio Berlusconi, said if the government does file such an amendment, his party will drop its support for the reform.
"If Renzi makes a U turn for the sake of holding his party together, we'll have no choice but to vote against it," Brunetta said.
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