Resources equal to those provided for in the recovery plan and the 2021 financial statement
With the 2021 Budget Law, the amount available to the fund for the new state employment contract rose to 3,8 billion. Considering the effects that this decision will also have on the employees of the peripheral administrations, an overall spending amount of € 6,7 billion is reached: 26 per cent more than what was paid to all public sector employees in the last renewal signed in 2018.
Well, if, with the same "momentum", both the losses in turnover recorded last year and an additional contribution of 26 per cent were recognized to the economic activities that were forced to close by decree or Prime Ministerial Decree, the State should confer to these entrepreneurs affected by Covid just over 250 billion euros: an amount that is close to the sum of the allocations provided for by the Recovery plan and by the Budget law for 2021. The provocation is raised by the CGIA.
We recall that, up to now, due to the pandemic, all economic activities have obtained from the executive - net of credit facilities and the effect of the postponement of some tax deadlines - only 29 billion euros of direct aid.
Mind you, someone could judge this comparison between public employees and self-employed workers as senseless and, above all, irreverent towards the former who are waiting for the renewal of the contract. Objections, the latter, in part acceptable. However, with this forcing we want to highlight how an important part of the Italian economy - consisting of at least 5 million artisans, traders, merchants, hoteliers and self-employed workers - has suffered substantial losses due to the closures imposed by decree by the government, not have benefited from adequate compensation, although they have always been unable to count on any social safety net.
Unlike civil servants who, on the other hand, faced with this unprecedented economic crisis, there was no danger of losing either their jobs or part of their income. Not to mention that among the workers of the Public Administration the share of those who in recent months of Covid has been able to experiment with smart working has been very high, managing to better reconcile work with family commitments and free time, also benefiting from zeroing transport costs and those related to the lunch break.
“Economic crises - begins the coordinator of the Studies Office Paolo Zabeo - are never democratic. This time too, in fact, the most fragile people, such as women and young people, will pay the heaviest bill. And if the latter are also holders of a VAT number, the inconveniences increase exponentially. For this reason, the time has come to create a finally universal social safety net that involves everyone: self-employed workers and employees of both the public and private sectors. Let me be clear, this path must be pursued without removing the guarantees already acquired by subordinate workers, but by extending the protections also to those who are currently without them, using, first of all, the resources that we will spend on cashback. This is a measure that increasingly takes on the contours of a real misfortune. In the next 2 years, in fact, it will cost the state coffers almost 5 billion euros that we will scandalously give to the richest people. Resources, on the other hand, that would be used to support the many VAT numbers that, due to Covid and the closures imposed by decree, risk definitively lowering the shutter ".
"It is however necessary to underline - affirms the secretary Renato Mason - that with the Budget law for the current year the Government has begun to take some small steps in the right direction, even if we are still in an embryonic and completely insufficient phase. . Although still too timid and uncertain, a more equitable and supportive welfare system is beginning to take shape, extending its effects to the people of VAT numbers as well. A system that is based on the partial exemption of INPS contributions due by self-employed workers and freelancers, however financed by a cover fund equal to only one billion euros, and on the introduction of the extraordinary identity of income and operational continuity, is to say a kind of redundancy to support the income of professionals enrolled in the separate Inps management. The road has been traced, now we need to continue on this side by investing more resources and with greater determination, because it is no longer acceptable, as this pandemic crisis has shown, that some workers are almost immune from any risk and others cannot take advantage of any shock absorber. social in case of difficulty ".
Finally, the CGIA Studies Office reports that the last contract signed by public employees was signed in 2018 and involved the three-year period 2016-2018. The deal came after nearly a decade of wage freezes imposed by law. Analyzing the trend of the average gross salary in the public sector, it is clear that between 2010 and 2019 the increase was 4 per cent (inflation, on the other hand, rose by 10,5 per cent in the same period) . If in this decade the contractual increases due to the blockade have not undergone significant increases, in the previous fifteen years (1995-2009) the increase in expenditure was exponential: +72 per cent against an average inflation growth of 40 per cent. Following this surge in the cost of salaries for civil servants, the Berlusconi IV government and subsequently also the executives Monti, Letta and Renzi decided to sterilize the increases for almost 10 years, with the goal, partially achieved, of curbing public spending of a current nature.
