CGIL, FIOM blast Jobs Act deal and promise action

(ANSA) - Milan, November 14 - Susanna Camusso, the leader of Italy's biggest trade union confederation CGIL, on Friday blasted the agreement Premier Matteo Renzi's executive reached with dissidents within his own centre-left Democratic Party (PD) over his Jobs Act labour reform bill. She also vowed that "the game is absolutely not over". The GCIL is set to stage a national general strike against the Jobs Act, which features changes to the law on unfair dismissal, and the government's 2015 budget bill, on December 5.
    Tension eased within the PD on Thursday when the executive agreed to amend the changes in the Jobs Act to Article 18 of the 1970 Workers Statutes guaranteeing people unjustly sacked the right to their job back. Initially the Jobs Act stipulated this this would change for newly hired workers so that if a court finds they were unjustly sacked, they would get compensation, rather than being rehired. It said judges must order a firm to rehire a worker only in cases of discrimination. But the government has agreed to change the bill on the basis of a petition approved at a tense PD meeting in September, which states that people fired on the basis of groundless disciplinary complaints should also have the right to their jobs back. Camusso, however, is not satisfied. "It doesn't seem to us that the mediation (within the PD) maintains the rights (of workers)," Camusso said.
    She was echoed by Maurizio Landini, the leader of leftwing Italian metalworkers union FIOM, who blasted the internal PD agreement as a "mockery". He also said the FIOM will keep protesting against the bill. "The mediation within the PD is a mockery that is only useful for MPs to hang on to their jobs," said Landini, whose organization is part of CGIL. "We won't stop. We'll keep going all the way until they change their position," he added at a protest rally in Milan. "We have the strength and intelligence to do so".