From the historic conflict between workers and entrepreneurs to an alliance in the name of quality employment and productivity. It is the road taken by the Confsal union and the Cifa employers' association, which took to the streets of Montecitorio to put the theme of work back on the political agenda.
"It is an unusual but necessary event - comments the president of Cifa (Italian Confederation of Autonomous Federations) and Fonarcom, Andrea Cafà - entrepreneurs and workers together in the streets to overcome the conflict". "We have expressed this desire in an interconfederal agreement, today we are beginning to testify in the square. We need - Cafà continues - to modernize the world of work with workers and entrepreneurs who plan productivity together and think together to acquire the necessary and useful skills for to face the challenges that the future poses ".
"For the first time in the history of Italy different categories and different stories go down together to put the accent on work, a topic that seems to have disappeared from the political agenda, but that instead constitutes the future of our country", states the general secretary of the Confsal, Angelo Raffaele Margiotta. "Workers and entrepreneurs demonstrate together because we are in the presence of a dramatic economic situation for all Margiotta adds - unemployment remains high while growth remains low, economic difficulties for entrepreneurs increase while wages' purchasing power decreases".
To re-launch the economy, the union therefore calls for "reducing the contributory wedge that weighs on companies and the tax wedge that weighs on wages, starting from the taxation of wages below a minimum threshold". While Confsal underlines the importance also of a reform of the training system with an orientation, emtp to continuous training.
"We need to move towards a new school model - says Cafà - for adults and young people. We are already in the digital and continuous innovation era, and our workers must keep up to date. This is why Fonarcom has a central role in the new market of work: in the last ten years we have funded over 250 million training to increase people's employability and give businesses more skills ".
A handbook with the proposals for this new "labor front" has been sent to the various parliamentary groups. The government has opened in the direction of a wedge cut, "but the road is still to be built," notes Margiotta.
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Fonarcom