Issue of fair pay goes beyond legal minimum wage - Calderone

(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 16 - The issue of fair pay goes well beyond the idea of a legal minimum wage introduced by law, Labour Minister Marina Elvira Calderone said on Thursday.
    "There is the issue of a decent wage that involves a much broader reasoning than the legal minimum wage established by law," said Calderone on the sidelines on an event on labour organised by Premier Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, reiterating that the government is in favour of collective bargaining.
    "To make an argument on a fair wage also means taking into account that within the framework of collective bargaining the value of the hourly wage is determined by a whole series of factors," continued the minister.
    "We are against the legal minimum wage for reasons of coherence in the use of tools," added Calderone.
    "If we are in favour of bargaining we cannot impose by law a number representing a minimum wage," she said, adding that the government is committed to supporting contract renewals and combating "all forms of spurious employment" such as "false labour brokerage".
    In June opposition parties presented a joint bill to introduce a legal minimum wage of nine euros gross per hour in response to the issue of fair pay.
    However, while saying such a provision could be applied to some categories of workers as part of all-round efforts to combat low salaries, the government ruled out tackling the problem through a single, generic law and asked the National Council for Economics and Labor (CNEL) to come up with an alternative in time for the presentation of the 2024 budget bill.
    Last month the CNEL said that wage levels should be set in the "traditional way" of collective bargaining. (ANSA).