There must be times when Elsa Fornero feels she has the world's worst job. When the 63-year-old stepped out to buy a new pair of shoes last weekend, she was accompanied by no fewer than 10 police officers: six plainclothes bodyguards and another four to close off the pedestrian precinct in Turin where she went shopping. There are anti-mafia prosecutors who get less protection. But then Fornero is Italy's welfare and employment minister, and the architect of labour reform laws that were approved by the cabinet on Friday. Among other things, it will now be easier for bosses to axe workers in an economic downturn. The last full-scale attempt to free up Italy's labour market was 10 years ago. The man behind that reform was Marco Biagi who was shot dead by the self-styled New Red Brigades. Three years earlier, the same group murdered Massimo D'Antona, another academic who was the adviser on employment law reform to the then centre-left government. Clearly, some people feel Fornero, an economics professor at the University of Turin, should meet the same fate: a demonstrator was photographed earlier this week outside parliament in Rome wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Fornero for the cemetery".The New Red Brigades, several of whose members had links with the most extreme wing of the trade union movement, have since been dismantled. But labour law reform remains Italy's hottest political potato. A two-tier labour market divides virtually un-sackable, mainly older workers in indefinite employment from younger ones hired on an endless succession of short-term contracts that offer them almost nothing in the way of welfare benefits. The Fornero reform also includes measures to encourage bosses to give younger people apprenticeships, which guarantee modest welfare benefits and offer the chance of a long-term engagement. The minister behind it has shown a rare - but seemingly unwished for - ability to attract attention. In December, she broke down in tears at a press conference as she announced an end to inflation-indexing for all but the lowest pension bands. The move was later reversed.
Access Investments-Building Awareness - European Union-ROMANIA
Saturday, March 24, 2012
There must be times when Elsa Fornero feels she has the world's worst job. When the 63-year-old stepped out to buy a new pair of shoes last weekend, she was accompanied by no fewer than 10 police officers: six plainclothes bodyguards and another four to close off the pedestrian precinct in Turin where she went shopping. There are anti-mafia prosecutors who get less protection. But then Fornero is Italy's welfare and employment minister, and the architect of labour reform laws that were approved by the cabinet on Friday. Among other things, it will now be easier for bosses to axe workers in an economic downturn. The last full-scale attempt to free up Italy's labour market was 10 years ago. The man behind that reform was Marco Biagi who was shot dead by the self-styled New Red Brigades. Three years earlier, the same group murdered Massimo D'Antona, another academic who was the adviser on employment law reform to the then centre-left government. Clearly, some people feel Fornero, an economics professor at the University of Turin, should meet the same fate: a demonstrator was photographed earlier this week outside parliament in Rome wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Fornero for the cemetery".The New Red Brigades, several of whose members had links with the most extreme wing of the trade union movement, have since been dismantled. But labour law reform remains Italy's hottest political potato. A two-tier labour market divides virtually un-sackable, mainly older workers in indefinite employment from younger ones hired on an endless succession of short-term contracts that offer them almost nothing in the way of welfare benefits. The Fornero reform also includes measures to encourage bosses to give younger people apprenticeships, which guarantee modest welfare benefits and offer the chance of a long-term engagement. The minister behind it has shown a rare - but seemingly unwished for - ability to attract attention. In December, she broke down in tears at a press conference as she announced an end to inflation-indexing for all but the lowest pension bands. The move was later reversed.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
The future of General Motors' European subsidiary Opel has been in doubt frequently in recent years. GM almost sold Opel in 2009 but backed away from the deal at the last moment.
Recently, however, there have been rumors of plant closures in Europe as a result of GM's frustration with mounting losses at Opel and its sister company Vauxhall. Now those plans appear to be taking concrete form. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal and the Reuters news agency both cited insiders saying that GM's Opel managers are planning to shutter to two plants in Europe.
Next Wednesday, Opel managers will present a business plan to the unit's board that apparently foresees the closure of two plants, reducing production capacity by 30 percent. According to the Wall Street Journal, the plans could be completed and made public within the next couple of weeks. The locations that are in greatest danger of closure are apparently Bochum in Germany, which has around 5,000 employees, and Ellesmere Port in the United Kingdom, which has 2,100 workers.
Reuters quoted a member of the supervisory board from the labor side as saying that GM had complained about an annual excess capacity of 500,000 cars, which translates into two plants too many. "The new head of manufacturing has been visiting one site after the other, playing them off against each other," said the unnamed board member. According to the source, the main points of the business plan to be presented next week are "plant closures and no growth of the company."
we are living in a bankocracy.
People really need to wake up to the fact that the system has been and is continued to be being pumped full of credit and that one day it will end period. They can't keep kicking the can down the road like this forever.
The inflation deniers are doing the populous a dis-service and that is being polite.
You basically have to hide your wealth, tie it up, pass it on to trusted siblings. Shield yourself by taking your cash out of the system, offset inflation by buying things you need now and hoard upon on long term essentials food, light bulbs, etc
We can't avoid rising energy prices and things like that but if they sky rocket one can at least claim poverty and the government will have to step in, so long as you remember to hide your hard earned wealth I say again !
Taking it to its locgical conclusion if things go really bad and we all end up without a job the government will then have no choice but to shrink in size and reduce taxes as A will no longer be in a position to give to B and it most definitely won't be able to borrow its way into paying for social security.
We can but pray that on the other side of a global economic collapse lies a uptoia free from government interference, void of a something for nothing socialist culture.
Post a Comment