Advance redundancy pay 'counter-productive:' Confindustria

(ANSA) - Naples, October 3 - A plan to increase workers' pay packets by giving them the option of receiving severence pay in advance would be "counter-productive" for small firms already facing a credit crunch, Confindustria small business president Alberto Baban said Friday.
    "Weakening or in whatever way, aggravating a system that at the moment still has not stabilised at a critical time for small and medium firms, is counter-productive," Baban told a Naples conference on small and mid-sized business.
    Baban said it was too early to say whether the scheme would be a drain on firms' liquidity, but "at the moment small and medium firms are still in a period of difficulty, credit crunch and difficulty in access to liquidity".