The country’s stuck! It’s time to mobilize

Italy is still in the midst of a recession as all indicators have highlighted, has performed the worst according to OECD which daily records the dramatic economic and social situation of our country. So far, no  extraordinary effort has been put on lowering taxes, on development, on reforms aimed at reducing  excessive unchecked spending in the country.  One need only think of the privatised municipal services which have proved to be disastrous. The scandal concerning 30,000 outsourcing services in the public administration, regional autonomy that has become the core of all spending- waste, inefficiency and money-swindling . Six years of economic crisis have cost 900 thousand jobs from 2008 to 2013. And the sore has not yet finished as in 2014, according to estimates of the Cisl (Italian Trade Union), at least 140,000 workers risk being kicked out from production circles.

We abstractly talk of “jobs act” and then shy away from evidence in the presence of hundreds and thousands of young people who have been forced to set up on their own, who are working in underpaid jobs that offer no social benefits, which also applies to the many young working on a “co.co.pro” (hired on project-based contracts). or being forced into becoming associates in partnerships. This is what “insecurity” really means,  which needs to be tackled with great courage. The 80 Euros “tax bonus” (which actually boiled down to 54 Euros) has been too far proclaimed to the four winds, even though a breath of fresh air to many families,  has not produced noteworthy effects on consumption, since it’s been “eaten” up by the additional regional and municipal tax-rises, which have doubled and in some cases even tripled.

The struggle against tax evasion has vanished from the political agenda. The way out for a stalling Italy that is slowly “folding up” on itself, with a southern Italy completely abandoned to its fate,  with growing social gaps cannot afford to rely only on just more flexibile margins handed out by the European Union in the forthcoming months. We need the public role to be stronger in order to boost the domestic demand and especially encourage investments  that have dramatically plummeted in recent years.

But all is still and motionless. The government, on the one hand has put a block on all public contracts, on the other, it has given the green light on further motorway constructions through unclear operations.  A really emblematic story!  As has been the case in other difficult and complicated stages throughout Italian history,  it would serve above all to oblige a direct confrontation and cooperation of all the principle and responsible players, who should each take on political, Trade Union and entrepreneurial committments. The government however, doesn’t want to take a road of  an indispensable social pact, which would be the only way to foster cohesion in the difficult and obligatory choices that need to be made.

This is the reason why Cisl intends mobilising in the coming weeks: “we will be explaining openly to the Italian people about the questionable choices made by the government but with the goal of taking up the real path for dialogue and reform. We will not provide alibis for any sort of “populism”, none the less to those who wish to “empty out” on the entire social representatives, the contradictions that have opened up in the Italian left-wing.

Traduzione: Marina Stronati