(Finance) – “Finally, the Meloni government seems to be giving an opening with respect to the renewal of the contract of state workers for the 2022/24 period. In the 2023 Economic and Financial Document it is written that resources are needed for public employment which will be found with the strengthening of the review of current expenditure, which with savings increasing over time, will contribute to the coverage of these policies”. The problem – highlights theAnief – is that “the government has 3 billion available to spend this year, obtained thanks to greater economic growth. Money that will be used for a new cut in the tax wedge from May to December of this year and which will be added to the reduction of three percentage points of contributions for incomes up to 25 thousand euros, and of two points for those up to 35 thousand euros”.
“The problem – he comments Marcello Pacifico, national president of Anief – is that for an adequate increase in public salaries of billions more than double is needed: at least 16, because inflation in 2022 is 7.2% points despite the 1.5% allocated by the Draghi government and the another 1.5% allocated by the current Meloni government. The 8 billion that would be put on the ‘plate’ by the executive in office would only be used to pay the immediate adjustment of the unfunded contractual holiday allowance for 2023 and adjusted only for 2022. Do not think – continues Pacifico – that in order to equalize at least the cost of living and to give a minimum increase, it is true that the cut in the tax wedge and that of the Irpef rates is enough, they are certainly aids but they are not at all enough to cover the expenses that public employees have to face every month”.
Just yesterday, too president of the Constitutional Court Silvana Sciarra, during the press conference following the report on the activity and jurisprudential guidelines of the Court in 2022, he said “the problem of low wages is not only an Italian problem and it is a very serious one”. Sciarra invited attention to article 36 of the Constitution, which provides that the worker has “the right to a remuneration proportionate to the quantity and quality of his work and in any case sufficient to ensure a free and dignified existence for himself and his family In my opinion – he specified – it is one of the most interesting and beautiful articles of our Constitution, because it brings together the principle of dignity, with the principle of subsistence, with the principle of the family”.
Anief informs that it “fully approves the declarations of the president of the Constitutional Court Silvana Sciarra”. The young union calculated that between 6 and 8 billion euros are needed to pay the full contractual holiday allowance, which covers up to the 15 percent increase in inflation that occurred between 2022 and 2023. For this, cover the deficit with just 1.5%, as it was done for 2023, it can’t be enough. Without forgetting 2013 robbed of his career: for this reason, Anief has launched a national campaign to protect wages during inflation which rose by 12 points only in the last year due to the war in Ukraine and the high energy price: the current primary legislation provides for in fact that the contractual holiday allowance is equal to no less than 50% of the increase in the cost of living, therefore around 7%, also considering the current year. In figures, instead of an increase of between 6 and 14 euros, at least an average of 80 euros is needed.