Monotony and “Jobs for Life”

Europe has been a bastion of protecting workers and their jobs. 25 to 30 days of annual vacation are almost sacrosanct. Trying getting something done in August unless it involves tourism. And try and fire someone, even in Germany, who has been with the company for more than six months! But in these days of budgetary curtailment, that which was once sacred is now becoming expendable, and the failing economic powers in Europe are being forced to renege on the contractual and customary practices of lifetime employment in exchange for bailout money or sovereign debt accommodations. Austerity is the new panacea for Europe’s financial woes, and the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) are bearing the greatest burdens in this new minimalist era.

With about 60 million people, Italy is one of the scariest members of that failing European elite, if for no other reason than the size of her population (Greece only has about 11 million people). Unemployment in Italy, particularly among young people, is skyrocketing. Five years ago, Italy had a hideous youth unemployment rate of 21 percent; today that number has risen to an even more-alarming 31 percent. Discharged government employees and folks in the private sector who were sacked are becoming a growing and dissatisfied minority that could spell trouble for Italy’s ability to continue on this pathway of severe austerity.

In Italy, its credit rating falling through the floor, the scandals aggregated and the economy slid until PM Sylvio Berlusconi was forced out. The European Central Bank pushed hard as Italy sought tolerable interest rates in new loans from the ECB and the IMF. President Giorgio Napolitano asked a former economics professor, Mario Monti (above), to form a new replacement government of economic technocrats to deal with increasing European Union pressure on Italy from the for greater fiscal responsibility and to implement a mandatory austerity scheme of a government plagued with debt, mired in inefficiency and seemingly unable to break the expansive safety nets and pro-labor benefits that were threatening to collapse the already fragile economy. Monti also holds the posts of Prime Minister as well as Minister of Economy and Finance (the U.S. Treasury Secretary equivalent). As the German-led press for severe austerity all across Europe became the prerequisite for bailout cash, Monti was charged with implementation in Italy.

Although he slashed and cut, Monti also asked the EU and the IMF for some leeway to merge austerity measures with some needed stimulus money to create some semblance of growth, but his requests apparently have fallen on deaf ears. Despite his seemingly hopeless position, recent inarticulate words set off a firestorm of defiance: “It was just an off-the-cuff quip during a television interview this month. But when Prime Minister Mario Monti remarked that having a job for life in today’s economy was no longer feasible for young people — indeed, it was ‘monotonous’ — he set off a barrage of protests, laying bare one of the sacrosanct tenets of Italian society that the euro zone crisis has placed at risk.” New York Times, February 15^th. Italy’s joie de vivre, it’s live and let live but enjoy life

Today, Italians are not really feeling the joy. According to the University of Michigan's World Values Surveys, applying the “Subjective Well-Being Standard,” Italians rank 35^th, significantly behind Germany and even Nigeria, where half the people live on a dollar or less a day. According to the Huffington Post (February 10^th), “Hungary, South Korea, Russia, Spain and Italy had the fewest number of happy people.” Dissatisfaction and a sense of hopelessness for the future pervade the Italian psyche. “Mr. Monti has touched a nerve, undermining a principle as certain as death and taxes in most of Western Europe, where politicians often deride the Anglo-American model as outmoded and cruel even as economists cite its market flexibility as desirable.

“In Italy in particular, every major political force after World War II subscribed to the idea of guaranteeing the work of the male breadwinner to preserve the traditional family structure, said Elisabetta Gualmini, a labor expert who teaches at the University of Bologna. This social doctrine was also blessed by the Roman Catholic Church, which still holds much sway in Italy… Changes in labor law under consideration by his government, he said, were intended to restore the balance between those already in the labor market — who are ‘hyper-protected,’ he said — and those struggling to enter it, redressing ‘the terrible apartheid’ between older workers and young Italians working with contracts that offer fewer rights and little job security. The government has said it wants to pass its proposals by the end of March.

“But Italy’s labor unions have taken the lead in resisting many changes to existing law. Debate has been especially intense over Article 18 of the 1970 Workers Statute, which forbids companies with more that 15 employees from firing people without just cause. The unions say that line cannot be crossed… The government, on the other hand, argues that the restrictions imposed by Italy’s tightly regulated labor market make companies reluctant to hire new workers because they cannot be fired once they have been given regular contracts. Italian labor laws have also held foreign investors at bay, Mr. Monti said.” NY Times.

Italy is a nation where economic collapse and political instability are nothing new. That the country is enmeshed in a pan-European currency that deprives Italy from such effective tools as currency devaluation is a problem that has plagued all of the weaker EU economies. Instead of devaluing the currency which is a softer way of imposing austerity, Italian policy-makers can only fire employees, cut pay and reduce spending on personnel generally. Given Italy’s size, the fate of the entire EU is at stake. Failure is not an option, but what has been proposed and imposed isn’t working either.

I’m Peter Dekom, and while the European Union was formed to prevent war among regional animosities, today there is a economic war that seems to pit the proverbial “bad guy” – Germany – in an economic war with the rest of Europe anyway!