Schlein and work: minimum wage and the battle against precariousness

ROME – “Work and poor must no longer be in the same sentence”. Here it is, in extreme synthesis, the Schlein Economy. “Fighting fight” against precariousness. “Turning the page” after the “errors of the Jobs Act”, but without reinstating article 18. “Abolish free internships and pirate contracts, bring home the minimum wage: because below a certain threshold it’s not work, it’s exploitation”. Experience “the four day work week”, paid like five. “Negotiating the algorithm”, because we need “new protections for digital work”, not just for riders. And for VAT numbers, just “insecure and fragile work”. And again: equal pay for men and women.

A mix of the Spanish model – the rule is the permanent contract, the exception is the fixed-term one – and the social democratic model of Northern Europe: a lot of green and circular economy on the agenda of the new Pd secretary. Proximity welfare because “it is not a cost, but an investment that frees women’s work”, accessible school and public health, a driving force for good employment and a battlefield against inequalities: “We must fight them where they form”, from kindergarten .

Inequalities, climate, precariousness are the three cross-challenges at the basis of Schein thought. To the point of leading to a “new social contract” to be written, capable of “redistribution”, here is the other key verb. Those who have more must contribute more: “No to flat taxes and amnesties, yes to a tax on inheritances and donations at EU level”. And also: “Make tax evaders pay taxes”. Shifting the burden of taxation from business and worker to “climate-changing income and emissions”. That is, eliminating the 22 billion a year that the country spends “on environmentally harmful subsidies” and reinvesting them “to help businesses, especially small and medium-sized ones, to innovate processes and pollute less”.

Managing epochal transitions: environmental and digital. This is the key to Schlein’s “new social contract”. Creating employment is not enough, “if it is not of quality, if it does not ensure a free and dignified existence”. And for this we need to “change the model of development: enough with neoliberalism”. Rather redistribute: “Riches, knowledge, power, time.”

There is no room for drilling and nuclear power in the economy imagined by the new Pd secretary. There is something to relaunch public construction, renewable energies, the “ecological conversion of the economy and society”. Elly Schlein prefers development to the word growth: “Not only the same thing, the current model of linear growth is unsustainable: it produces more pollution, more global warming, more inequalities. Talking about sustainable development instead means building a more just economy that improve people’s well-being, preserve the future of the planet and eradicate poverty”. The Schlein Economy.