“This government lives in another country, it doesn’t see the three million working poor” – Corriere.it

The Chamber reopens and the oppositions are ready to launch a stay on the minimum wage. Already this week they will ask for the scheduling of the bill which has the names of all the big opposition figures at the bottom: from Elly Schlein to Nicola Fratoianni and Angelo Bonelli, from Giuseppe Conte to Riccardo Magi, and then Matteo Richetti who for Action makes the instead of Carlo Calenda only because the leader is in Palazzo Madama and not in Montecitorio.

Italia Viva is missing and it is Enrico Borghi, who has just passed from the Democratic Party to Renzi’s party, who explains why: “This bill does not technically make sense and if they want to use the minimum wage to unite the opposition in a demagogic way, we are not there”. There are all the other opposition parties, and when they presented it they truly believed that a bill on a similar issue could find an alliance with the government parties. Illusion frozen before birth. In fact, the cold shower arrived on Saturday with the words of the Minister of Labor Marina Calderone: “I am not convinced that the minimum wage can be reached by law”, she said. And again yesterday Elly Schlein, secretary of the Democratic Party, could not understand the wall raised by the majority.

“This government lives in another country”, the dem secretary vented to her. And she then added: «They don’t see those three million poor workers. The goal of this majority is clear, they want to dismantle every social safety net, as they have already done with the basic income. It is up to the opposition to join the fight on concrete issues such as the minimum wage”.

The longed-for dream is always that, the wide field. We have come close with this bill, with the agreement of Pd and M5s, Action and +Europe and then the Green Alliance and the Italian Left. «It is an important milestone also because, in fact, this is the first law of parliamentary initiative. It has to make its way through decrees and votes of confidence, but we will not give up», says Riccardo Magi, secretary of +Europe. And he explains: «Before this one, in the Constitutional Affairs commissions we were discussing the first bill of parliamentary initiative, the one on away-of-office voting. But then the majority actually emptied it, reducing it to a delegation to the government. Here: on the minimum wage we will fight so that this does not happen ».

Ready to do battle even from the Action front who promoted this initiative with Carlo Calenda. Osvaldo Napoli, of the party secretary, says: «President Giorgia Meloni is wrong to simply see a political initiative by the left. The theme has such a broad, profound and urgent social dimension that it imposes itself beyond and above political alignments. The constant reminder of the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella to the need to safeguard social cohesion requires operational tools that are shared as much as possible”. Calenda also took the initiative to write to Prime Minister Meloni asking to be received to discuss the proposal. The bill unites the opposition, but splits the unions. On Saturday it was the general secretary Luigi Sbarra, general secretary of the Cisl, who agreed with minister Calderone, decisively saying that the minimum wage is not obtained by law, in contrast with the CGIL.

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