The barricade still holds: Minimum wage, the vote slides

Rome — The baton is passed on: Maria Cecilia Guerra speaks first for twenty minutes, as many Giuseppe Conte, Nicola Fratoianni intervenes in the meantime Matteo Richetti gets ready. The filibustering of the oppositions in the Labor Committee of the House works and keeps the right still on the ropes. The amendment with which Fratelli d'Italia, Lega and Forza Italia want to suppress the legal minimum wage proposal of 9 euros gross per hour, presented by all the oppositions (except Renzi), is still to be voted on. Sled. The showdown is postponed to next week, probably Tuesday. Arturo Scotto, the Dem group leader, director of the obstructionism, in the end re-launches the appeal to the majority: "Reflect, and withdraw the amendment".

But there are few political margins to bring home the minimum wage, with a majority so sidelined. The leader of the 5Stelle admits it, Conte who attacks upside down: “President Meloni has not shown any sensitivity, she does not understand that a problem of the dignity of workers is at stake here. It's a completely wrong attitude." There are 3 and a half million working poor. As wrong, "from the bar", he defines the words with which the prozist deputy prime minister Antonio Tajani liquidated the minimum wage, as something from the USSR. Yet the former Prime Minister Grillo recalls that Foreign Minister Tajani should be aware of what is happening in other European countries where there is a minimum wage, and it certainly is not "Soviet colonies". Meloni then knows that with the 9 euro threshold, «24% of female workers would see their wages increase. Because if not, what are we bragging about? Of having the first female Prime Minister who refuses to consider a measure in favor of women? Conte has it for everyone. But there is the opening of the M5S on cutting the tax wedge: "We will be there on this, we have already started with Count 1".

It's a fight with no holds barred. Therefore Elly Schlein and the Democratic Party are thinking of a collection of signatures, so as to re-present a popular initiative law in Parliament in six months, it cannot be done before. Conte invites us to proceed step by step: "We do our battle in the commission, we will go to the courtroom and if it is not enough we will speak to the whole country". The Democratic Party, on the other hand, accelerates: the signatures could already be collected at the Unity Festivals. On the other hand, this morning, Luigi De Magistris' Unione Popolare will already launch a collection of signatures for the minimum wage of 10 euros an hour.

Hard is the question and answer between Conte and the president of the commission, Walter Rizzetto. Rizzetto is a former 5Stelle, transmigrated to Fratelli d'Italia for years. Conte reminds him of when he too agreed on the minimum wage and in 2014 signed the Movement law. He challenges Rizzetto for a tweet complete with photos of the 5Stelle leader that he toasts. “I will really toast when we get the minimum wage,” Conte points out. The discussion becomes political. The disputes start in the commission. It is Scotto who reproaches the president, because he is not a referee and is very militant: "You have the possibility of being replaced in the presidency and of making your political intervention". Rizzetto leaves the presidency and moves to the seats of the majority, counterattacking on the need to bring the provision to the courtroom on the 28th, in a hurry by the opposition. A new statement by Tajani against the minimum wage adds more fuel to the fire: "Lower wages, we want to raise them." In the commission Fratoianni secretary of Si, denounces: "Here we are discussing an ambush by the majority against the poor workers". The group leader of Azione, Richetti, presses on: "It is not inexplicable to say no, but not to have a proposal". And the commission flows with dozens of interventions. Marco Sarracino, head of the South of the Democratic Party, adds: "The stubbornness with which the majority opposes our proposal for a minimum wage is incomprehensible: they do an injustice to millions of workers".