Italian Premier Matteo Renzi's
controversial Jobs Act decrees, praised by international
agencies and condemned by unions, were approved by cabinet
Friday, ending unstable temporary contracts a tangle of '70s-era
rules.
Renzi said his labour reforms, the centrepiece of his
efforts to transform a sluggish economy, will help some 200,000
people soon pass from unstable contracts to better employment
contracts.
"A generation finally sees its right to have greater
safeguards," the 40-year-old premier told a news conference.
"Words like 'health' and 'pension coverage', 'holidays',
'severance pay', and (other) rights enter the vocabulary of a
generation that has hitherto been excluded," added Renzi.
The Jobs Act bill had already been approved by parliament
and these final enabling decrees, also subject to parliamentary
approval, will enact its measures.
It also means businesses will no longer have any excuse to
avoid hiring, said the premier.
"We have cut taxes and removed uncertainties," he said.
"Labour has more flexibility in hiring and more safeguards
after redundancies," he said.
But trade union federation CGIL, which has fought the
changes, said the decrees will not reduce inequality and
uncertainty for workers as Renzi claims.
"The Jobs Act is the maintenance of differences and not the
fight against insecurity," it said in a statement.
Carmelo Barbagallo, general secretary of the UIL, said
Renzi's cabinet ministers were "liars".
"The government promised that they would remove all
precarious contracts. But this is not it, they are liars," he
said.
Renzi's labour reforms to a convoluted system of
regulations blamed for discouraging hiring have been strongly
endorsed by international organizations, including the OECD.
It said one day earlier that the Jobs Act could prove to be
"the real engine of change" for the struggling Italian economy.
Italy's "priority must remain the reform of the labour
market, whose excessive rigidity is an obstacle to job
creation," the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development added.
One of the most controversial measures in Renzi's labour
law changes Article 18 of the 1970 Workers' Statute so
that most unfair dismissals will now be settled by compensation
rather than court-ordered reinstatement.
That in particular has been hailed by the national and
international business communities as a way of creating jobs
amid chronic unemployment.
Sources said it could be next year before a new streamlined
contract is in place everywhere, replacing the two outdated
types of temporary contracts.
The 'contratto a progetto' or 'contratto di collaborazione
a progetto' (co.co.pro.) was introduced in 2003 as a successor
to the 'contratto di collaborazione coordinata e continuativa'
(co.co.co.), introduced in 1997.
Both forms of temporary contract have been widely used in
Italy along with so-called 'false VAT' contracts that enable
employers to keep staff on a casual standing.
The new uniform contract is supposed to also provide rising
safeguards over three years leading to permanent hires.
New staff are effectively on probation during those three
years, when they can be dismissed just as co.co.co's and
co.co-pros were often terminated.
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