Analysis
Italian unions wage war against Meloni budget with strikes and ‘radical counterproposals’
The unions are mounting a full-fledged attack on the government’s budget law. ‘Even a five-year-old can understand that the increase in health care funding is a joke, because the cost of living has increased even more.’
For the fourth consecutive year, the CGIL and UIL unions are calling a general strike against the government's budget bill. The first was against Draghi, the other three against Meloni. And for the fourth year in a row, the CISL is abandoning confederal unity, continuing its pro-government drift that led it to praise Giorgetti's budget bill because “our priorities have been turned into results.”
The two unions’ leaders, Landini and Bombardieri, who by now have a well-established and close-knit alliance, explained the reasons for this in a lengthy press conference in which they said they had “waited to study the text of the budget bill sent to Parliament” and put together their “radical counterproposals.”
The planned demonstration on November 5 at Palazzo Chigi – initially called by the Stellantis metalworkers – will be an opportunity to present these proposals. “If they listen to us, we will reconsider the strike,” Bombardieri stresses; the two are aiming to cut a “responsible” figure, but are fully aware that this won’t happen, because “the government has already announced that only small adjustments can be made during the parliamentary process, up to a maximum of €100 million for amendments,” as Landini recalls.
Last year, the unions chose joint regional-level strikes to “be on TV and in the newspapers for more days.” The media distortion of the unions’ positions led them to decide to go back to a single-day strike this year – Friday, Nov. 29 – although the demonstrations will still be locally focused.
The unions are mounting a full-fledged attack on the government’s budget law. It starts with the “solidarity contribution from the banks,” which is “actually a loan on current expenses and they’ll get the money back in the same way,” Bombardieri explains, “while public workers have to borrow from the banks to get their severance pay, which is their deferred salary.”
They also rail against the cut to the tax wedge: “We were the ones who got it enacted by striking in 2021 against the Draghi government,” Landini recalls, “but I will point out that workers are already paying for it, with interest: it costs 12 billion, while this year the revenue from the IRPEF tax increased by 15 billion – a tax that is paid 90 percent by employees and pensioners.”
Otherwise, “the budget bill is full of cuts to social spending, and at this point even a five-year-old can understand that the increase in health care funding is a joke, because the cost of living has increased even more in the meantime; and as a percentage of GDP – a benchmark used all over the world – health care funding is decreasing as never before,” Bombardieri explains.
As pensioners' unions were protesting in the streets – on Wednesday in Milan and Bologna – the unions tore apart the provisions of the budget law on pensions, citing the restriction of the conditions to access Opzione Donna (a special regime for early retirement for women – n.tr.) – “applications have dropped from 25,000 to 2,000” – and Quota 103 (a regime for early retirement – n.tr.): “The truth is that they are surreptitiously raising the retirement age by incentivizing people to keep working past the age of 70,” Landini says.
All this is happening while “precarity is rampant” and “we are in the 19th consecutive month with a decrease in industrial production.” The general strike will be the endpoint of “a mobilization that has already brought metalworkers, chemists, public workers and pensioners to the streets.”
CGIL and UIL's counterproposal starts with “a stop to cutting social spending, which is already too low, and acting on the revenue front.” The slogan is to “go get the money where it is,” by “copying France, Spain and the U.K. in taxing extra profits, annuities and inheritance taxes.” “We remember very well who it was that set the tax rate to zero, and now it would be enough to tax inheritances as in France, at 0.74 percent, to have as much as 14.8 billion at our disposal,” Bombardieri explains, “or apply the 43 percent rate on dividends to get 3.3 billion in revenue.” Finally, “a reform of the IRES tax, with a rise in the rate from the current 24 to 29 percent, [would] net another 12 billion,” said the UIL secretary.
“Our mobilization is not only against the budget law,” Landini stresses. “We will also take to the streets against the Collegato Lavoro labor bill that increases precariousness and makes it possible to call oneself an entrepreneur even if one doesn’t hire a single worker but only uses temporary workers, and against the Security Bill that provides for the arrest of those who demonstrate against the closure of their factories, forgetting that the only reason so many factories in Italy are still open is because of the protests and blockades by workers,” the CGIL secretary concludes.
The Lega was the first to respond to CGIL and UIL, asking themselves rhetorically why “two far-left unions (this was their actual wording – n.ed.) are striking against salary increases for 14 million employees of up to €40,000?“ The CISL had objections to Landini's wording, who said: “while other organizations think their task is always to tell the government ‘how good and lovely you are,’ I, on the other hand, think that it is necessary to protect the interests of workers.” CISL leader Sbarra said he was “offended” by that remark and demanded that the CGIL secretary “stop being a driving force for the political opposition, as nobody needs unions playing politics.”
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/cgil-e-uil-sciopero-generale-cambi-radicali-alla-manovra on 2024-10-31