Minimum wage, Schlein challenges the government: “Below 9 euros is exploitation”

ROME – He doesn’t intend to back down a millimeter. The goal is to press the majority on a measure that is met with approval even among those who support the government. Elly Schlein on the minimum wage it puts the face and commitment of the whole party. “The oppositions have joined forces on this proposal”. All united – with the exception of Italia Viva – to achieve two objectives: “Strengthen collective bargaining” and reiterate that the latter, below a certain threshold, “is exploitation”. The threshold is the one set by the majority proposal, that of nine euros an hour, considered essential so that work – it is the mantra of the minority – does not turn into its negation.

A thesis, that of Schlein, supported by the numbers, which the secretary of the Democratic Party rattles off in a long speech in the commission: “In the last ten years, national collective agreements have multiplied. The problem, besides the fact that there are so many, is that out of 421 contracts only 25 are signed by CGIL, CISL and UIL”. And again: “The international labor organization says that the minimum wage would improve the economic condition of 25 percent of workers.” The dem secretariat has made work an identity trait of the new Democratic Party, radical in social and civil rights. “We think that fixed-term contracts should be limited, it would be a qualitative leap for this country”. The opposite of what was established by the government with the decree of May 1st. “I was struck by the testimony of a waitress who works in the hotel and who in recent years has seen the price of rooms triple while his salary has always remained at a standstill”. For this reason, according to Schlein, “it is not enough to intervene with the cut of the tax wedge”. We need the minimum wage. “It is a battle of civilization” , a way – he insists – to give a signal to “those three and a half million people in difficulty”, to guarantee them a “threshold of protection”. To do this, it goes without saying, it is important that the majority withdraw the amendment with which he intends to bury the text. Or rather: to make sure that the opposition’s flagship proposal is not talked about for at least another six months, as prescribed by parliamentary rules. Therefore it is important that the majority bury the hatchet and try to enter “into the merits of the proposal”.

The urgency is felt all the more, underlines the secretary of the Democratic Party, if one thinks of “certain events involving ministers in the government – ​​she says with reference to Daniela Santanchè – whose companies do not seem to have paid their employees or suppliers and have unbeknownst to them in layoffs. Don’t you realize how much clashes with those data? I tell you: give a signal “.

And again: “Can’t you hear how noisy the silence of those who no longer enter the voting booth is?” “In that 50 percent who no longer vote – he added – there are above all the lower income brackets. For this reason “it is important to withdraw the suppressive amendment and to have a discussion with us who presented this proposal”. In the morning the niet to the minimum wage had come from a heavyweight of the majority: Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani. he had branded the opposition proposal as a measure bordering on Bolshevism. “It exists in all European countries, it is only missing in five”, replied Schlein. “The government talks about the birth rate but how can one raise a family if not is it possible to combine lunch with dinner?”.