Artificial intelligence and employment: the UIL calls for the redistribution of profits and a reduction in working hours whilst maintaining the same pay

In the Budget Bill, Bombardieri claimed that among the ‘positive outcomes’ was the allocation of two billion for labour market measures and for the tax exemption of contractual pay rises. ‘We have been criticised, and in some cases mocked, but the INPS has set the record straight: the funds we requested and which were allocated by the Government have benefited 3,800,000 people. For us, this is a significant achievement – for those communities, for those workers earning less than 35,000 euros gross per year, for the many part-time workers, for the working poor, and for the contracts that have been renewed.” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni responded positively to the UIL leader’s request for confirmation of the 5 per cent tax relief on pay rises in contracts due for renewal in 2027 and 2028, committing to extend the measure in the forthcoming Budget Bill.

Bombardieri put forward a proposal to the employers’ organisations, suggesting that we jointly call on the Government to introduce a 10-year tax cut for companies that merge and expand into new markets, thereby facilitating generational succession and promoting internationalisation, which ‘is, for us, the real solution, rather than competing with China over who has the lowest wages’. Speaking at the UIL congress, the Prime Minister also expressed her willingness to ‘discuss together a preferential tax regime that encourages mergers and generational succession’ with regard to this proposal.

Bombardieri regards the Labour Decree as a ‘victory’, as well as the Government’s decision to define a living wage as the total remuneration set out in the most representative collective agreements, and its decision not to exercise its delegated powers, given that discussions are currently underway between the social partners. ‘I organised two general strikes against the Meloni government,’ emphasised the UIL leader. ‘The government has stated that a living wage is that set out in the collective agreements signed by CGIL, CISL and UIL. This has never happened under any previous government.’

On the issue of representation, the challenge for Bombardieri is to ‘rewrite the rules of industrial relations and map out the future of Italian confederal trade unionism for the coming years. We are working towards signing a new inter-confederal agreement on this matter. To businesses I say: let’s get on with it. We believe the time has come for the ‘erga omnes’ application of collective agreements and that we must begin discussing the implementation of Article 39 of the Constitution – perhaps after reaching the inter-confederal agreement and asking the Government to transpose it into law and support it.”

On the subject of trade union democracy, Bombardieri has put forward a proposal for an ‘election day’ that would allow all workers – men and women alike – to vote for their representatives on the same day every three or four years.Let us embrace this principle and consider how and where to vote: let us give everyone an additional tool for democracy. “In elections held in the workplace, 80 per cent of those eligible to vote do so, and 70 per cent vote for the lists put forward by the CGIL, CISL and UIL,” he pointed out.