Employment and restoring human dignity through work are at the heart of the historical process that led to the construction of Europe. Its progress towards becoming a community of peoples has, over the decades, frequently run up against some terrible obstacles: dark pages such as the Marcinelle tragedy or the persecutions suffered by so many people and families fleeing wars and disasters today.
But Europe is no longer an ideal. It is a concrete political and civil reality, without which Italy would have collapsed long ago. Furthermore, in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic,
the European Union began to take unprecedented measures, including NextGenerationEu, which saved Italy from the economic stagnation caused by the pandemic, the Green Deal and the European Pillar of Social Rights.
There is an urgent need to strengthen this vision, both by guaranteeing the dignity of work and by promoting environmentally and socially sustainable development: both must be pursued in unison.
With regard to the first aspect, and also to prevent unfair competition between countries based on low wages, low social protection and low social spending, the European Pillar of Social Rights must first be implemented in all Member States, with a mix of sanctions and rewards. Unfortunately, Italy is today the first country to deviate from this, with the abolition of the minimum income scheme for all individuals and households in absolute poverty and the de facto postponement of the implementation of a universal minimum wage, no matter how serious it is. Moreover, the pillar must be completed by including and enforcing the rights – currently denied – of people travelling or migrating within and outside EU territory, with rules requiring companies to respect human rights and the natural environment, including in their global supply chains.
Equality, an inalienable condition of dignity, must be upheld, as work is undermined by an increasingly unfair distribution of the wealth it produces:
Tax havens must be abolished, multinational companies must be taxed appropriately, extra profits and large fortunes, which have increased dramatically even during the pandemic, must be addressed, transactions whose sole purpose is profit, thus inflating the ever more explosive global financial bubble, must be sanctioned. A fiscal and financial rebalancing is urgently needed: a rebalancing that rewards jobs and households, as opposed to unproductive returns and speculation, and that favours long-term investment in sustainable development, notably in the European Green Deal.
This brings us to the second point: development. The European Green Deal should not be dismissed. On the contrary, also in terms of job creation, the ecological transition, together with the digital transition, is already a global benchmark that will promote development in the poorest countries. Social protection measures and plans for a social economy, for labour market transitions that leave no one on the margins, need to be strengthened.
To gain momentum, the resources allocated to the European budget and common debt mechanisms must be substantially increased in order to support major investments
open to cooperation with developing countries, combined with a common industrial policy and the pursuit of continental autonomy in strategic sectors to ensure that we are not divided in the face of the hegemony of the world’s great powers. Last but not least, it should be noted that sustainable development is not development based on the economy of war and the export of war: we, Italy, have been and continue to be suppliers to many dictatorships, including Saudi Arabia.
*ACLI national vice-president, responsible for Labour matters
