Landini (Cgil) in the square in Bari against the maneuver: “It’s madness to cancel income and introduce vouchers”

“We are against the maneuver that the government is making because in fact it is canceling the basic income and in a country where poverty has increased, canceling the basic income, to raise cash, is madness”. She said it Maurizio Landinigeneral secretary of the CGIL, at the protest demonstration against the maneuver in Bari.

“Instead – he added – going to get the money where it is, in the extra profits, in the large incomes that have been made, cash is raised on pensioners and the poor. Furthermore, there is a lot of confusion, I am the first to say that people need to be put in a position to be able to work, but basic income and active employment policies are two different things, mixing them together is just bullshit and from this point of view I think it is absolutely wrong not to have taxed of extra profits, which is what we are asking. In recent years, inequalities have increased, during the pandemic and within this energy crisis and in this war, there are those who have made the money. So the government must decide where to get it, and instead it continues to raise cash on the poor, on employees and pensioners, and continues, towards young people, to propose only a future of precariousness and all this is not acceptable to us”.

“Another issue concerns precariousness: vouchers are being reintroduced and it is a slap in the face to those who work honestly, and this request must be removed from the table”. Landini then said. “On the contrary – he argued – we need to change the wrong laws made in recent years, from the Jobs Act to come forward. Then there is an issue that concerns the real fight against tax evasion, which is not being done, rather measures are being taken that go in the opposite direction, and on the other hand there is the need to invest in rights, starting from public health, from school, there is a need to invest resources for the renewal of contracts and for hiring”.

However, the union’s intention is to continue with the protest. “We will go ahead even after the budget law if they don’t listen to us, because a government that says it wants to last five years in these five years must make reforms and must decide whether it wants to make them together with the world of work or against the world of work” .

“There is a fundamental issue that this finance law does not address, because there is not a word and there is no idea on the development of the South and this is another very serious matter. Indeed the forces of government of differentiated autonomy. It is exactly the opposite of what we need”. The CGIL rejects the hypothesis of autonomy to the sender. “We must not divide this country – he added – we need to unite it and extend rights to everyone. We do not need differentiated autonomy, young people must have a future that is not precarious ahead of them, but they must be able to live and work and contribute to our country. The risk is that young people only have the prospect of leaving our country, as unfortunately is happening”.

“Together with the Uil we are demonstrating throughout Italy, in many cases in the majority of the regions we have demonstrated together, the platforms are unitary. We are not demonstrating against other unions, we are here in the streets to support the unitary platforms on taxation, on pensions , on the labor market, which we have presented to governments together with the other trade union organisations”. Maurizio Landini said, answering journalists to a question about the divisions between the trade unions.

“The question – he continued – therefore, is not because you are demonstrating, at most the question is why those who are asking for things with us and the Government are not giving them to us, are not demonstrating. We are fighting for everyone, we are not we are here to argue, we are here to tell all people, from students, to precarious workers, to immigrants, to young people, to pensioners, that we must unite, not divide ourselves, that it is time to unite the world of work and that it is the time to unite all the healthy forces of this country to really change and to make those reforms that this government does not want to make”.

“The government is cutting resources on health care, public education and also public administration. It is clear that many regions, including Puglia, risk being faced with the choice of either cutting services or raising taxes on citizens. While it takes a policy that goes exactly in another direction.This maneuver is a maneuver against the world of work, against young people because it increases precariousness, because it does not reduce the taxation on dependent work and on pensioners, on the contrary the low income continues to pay more than before and the only maneuvers they make are for those with incomes over 80,000 euros, and on the other hand we are faced with a maneuver that does not intervene on the basic reforms that must be made”.