As the Senate on Wednesday began
debating an enabling bill for Premier Matteo Renzi's signature
labour reform bill, or Jobs Act, the government remained
undecided on whether to file an amendment to its own
legislation.
"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 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.
Dissenters from Premier Matteo Renzi's Democratic Party
said that tabling a motion instead of an amendment is not
enough.
"The enabling bill is already too generic," said MP
Federico Fornaro, who signed on to seven amendments to the bill
filed by PD rebels last month.
"We don't want to issue any ultimatums," he added.
The minority group, which opposes scaling back Article 18,
has proposed a compromise solution that would include both the
premier's contract with progressively more protections and the
right to be reinstated in case of unfair dismissal, but after
the first three years on the job.
At the same time, ex PD chief Pier Luigi Bersani said
dissenters will toe the party line when the time comes to vote
on the Jobs Act sometime next week.
"Loyalty to the party and the government certainly won't be
lacking," said Bersani, once a premier-designate who failed to
form a government after the inconclusive outcome of the last
general election.
"I don't need rookies telling me how it works".
However the small but influential New Center Right (NCD)
party, a junior member of the governing coalition, said it will
not accept changes at this stage in the game.
"We want to move forward on the deal made by the majority,"
said Senate NCD whip and Jobs Act rapporteur, Maurizio Sacconi.
"We do not want any steps back".
Meanwhile, sources said Senate voting on the Jobs Act will
likely happen October 8 and not the day before as originally
scheduled, because a lot of MPs have signed up to speak.
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