Govt puts labour law to confidence vote

P(ANSA) – Rome, April 22 – Premier Matteo Renzi’s government is putting a controversial labour-reform decree to a confidence vote in the Lower House to speed its passage through parliament and quash dissent, Reform and Relations with Parliament Minister Maria Elena Boschi announced Tuesday. Putting the measure to a confidence vote limits debate and pressures critics within the coalition to back down, but it is risky, as the government will collapse if it loses the vote.BRThe New Centre Right (NCD), a junior partner in the coalition government, had threatened to vote against the decree because it is not happy with amendments passed in a committee. It said it would back the confidence vote after Boschi’s announcement, but vowed to battle to change the law in the Senate. The Civic Choice (SC) party of former premier Mario Monti said the same thing.BRThe decree is part of a drive to simplify Italy’s current myriad of different work contracts and benefits and help encourage firms to take on workers, especially young ones.BRIt includes changes to set employers a limit of five temporary contracts that they can offer new staff members in their first three years with the company.BRUnder the original version of the legislation, the limit was eight temporary contracts in the three-year period, after which the job must become permanent.BRBut this was brought down to five contracts due to concerns within Renzi’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD) that it could further increase the already high levels of job insecurity for people entering the labour market.BRThe NCD and SC, however, preferred the original version of the decree, which has been approved by cabinet and now needs to be ratified by parliament. “At the moment there is no agreement on the labour decree, we’re not voting for it,” senior NCD lawmaker Fabrizio Cicchitto said before Boschi announced the confidence vote. “There is an open debate within the PD and we are awaiting clarification on this issue”. The turmoil within the government meant the decree only scraped through the budget commission with four votes in favour, after SC and NCD members boycotted the session.BRThe mediation of Boschi and Labour Minister Giuliano Poletti had failed to produce an agreement at a meeting of government parties earlier Tuesday, prompting the executive to call the confidence test.BRThe PD had demanded that the maximum number of temporary contracts be reduced further to four at the meeting, ANSA sources said. The NCD, meanwhile, wanted changes to fines for companies who break new rules on apprenticeships. The government says the decree will help combat unemployment, which has reached a record high of 13%, with over four in 10 under-25s out of work. “The decree will accelerate the benefits in terms of jobs that the recovery is bringing,” Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan told the Radio Anch’io station Tuesday.BR/P
pa href=”http://ansa.feedsportal.com/c/34225/f/621716/s/39a01cd6/l/0L0Sansa0Bit0Cenglish0Cnews0Cpolitics0C20A140C0A40C220Cgovt0Eputs0Elabour0Elaw0Eto0Econfidence0Evote0Ica20Ab4e70E4c340E4fac0Ea9270E0A389e20Ad0A3c50Bhtml/story01.htm” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”View the original article here/a/p