Returning to Cosa Bolle, we've got lots to cover this time. First of all, the workings of the Italian Government. Mr. Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, is universally recognized as being a very sharp businessman (though he's now one of the wealthiest men in Italy he got his start singing on cruise ships), but also has a frightening talent for rousing the opposition. When he was PM in 1994 it was over pension reforms, while this time it's over labor laws. To be honest, something needs to be done; the Statuto dei Lavoratori that governs Italian labor, which was drawn up in 1970, was shaped by a peculiar alliance of Catholic and leftist politicians who had bitter memories of the underemployment, exploitation, and oppression suffered by Italian workers under prior regimes, and went to extraordinary measures to protect job security. In particular, it is almost impossible for a company with more than 15 employees to fire a worker, so long as the worker doesn't do something seriously illegal, for example sabotage the machinery or steal from the till -- and even then being let go is not a foregone conclusion, because a judge can decide the firing was not for just cause and reinstate the worker. For more run-of the-mill problems, e.g. the person is unpleasant, unenthusiastic, or starts office feuds, there's little to be done -- the person keeps the job until he or she retires or leaves. Feudalism in reverse, with the company being responsible for the worker until death or retirement, whichever comes first, and it's no wonder that many companies with 14 employees avoid expanding to keep from finding themselves saddled with these imposed marriages, while many others simply operate in the economia sommersa, completely outside the law.

The submerged economy is huge, especially in the southern part of the Peninsula, and the fact that all those workers and companies don't pay taxes puts a significant dent in the treasury, as well as making life much more difficult for companies that are above board and as a result have higher costs. Therefore, the government is trying to bring the submerged economy into the open, and one of the things they've decided to do is exempt newly emergent companies from the provision that requires a company to rehire a worker if the judge decides that the firing was not for just cause; in order to stimulate the above-board economy the same would also hold true for the new employees of companies that cross the 15-employee limit with new hires. Mind you, the new provision doesn't simply allow the company to fire willy-nilly: It gives them the choice of paying a large fine or rehiring the worker if the judge decides that the firing was not for just cause.

A provision that, on the face of it, seems reasonable -- if a company can let people go a little more easily, it will also be less reluctant to hire, and this is important in a country with high unemployment, especially among young people. This doesn't make sense to the unions, however, which are beating the drums to the tune of "This is just the beginning!" and have organized demonstrations that have drawn hundreds of thousands of people. I'd go too, if I thought that the Government was preparing a provision that would allow willy-nilly firing for no reason, but that's not what the government is proposing. And in the meantime tensions have risen to levels not seen since, well, 1994, and Marco Biagi, the economist who masterminded the proposal has been assassinated by the same people who killed Massimo D'Antona, an economist who advised the pervious left-of-center Government (using the same gun). To be frank, I think the union reaction is out of line -- a law that guarantees a worker's job for life may have been a good thing 30 years ago, but it's not now and is one of the reasons that Italy's unemployment is as high as it is. I'm not in favor of the here-today-gone-tomorrow mentality one can encounter in the US, but some flexibility is necessary. So I'm with Berlusconi on this one.

A presto,
Kyle Phillips
Webweaver, About Italian Cuisine

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