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.
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