ROME. It’s a 60 million euro game. It is the stumbling block on which the possibility of extending smart working in favor of fragile workers and parents of under 14 has been broken (for now, according to the Minister of Labor). to have proposed the extension in view of the launch of the new “Aid” decree, but in the final text of the provision passed last Thursday then nothing was foreseen, even though Orlando had continued to insist in the Council of Ministers.
The main obstacle came from the State General Accounting Office, which for such a measure (the hypothesis was three months of extension) has estimated, in fact, a cost of 60 million euros. This is because in the private sector if the fragile worker cannot access agile work, because for example the job he performs requires presence, his absence is equated to hospitalization, with all the related costs borne by the state. In the public sector, on the other hand, it is necessary at least to provide for the recruitment of alternates in the school to cover any gaps in staff, further increasing the burden of this measure.
But then there is also a problem of consensus, evidently, as the owner of the Job admitted Saturday in a post on Facebook, because in a maneuver worth 17 billion euros, after all, 60 million is an important but not impossible figure. to find. And last Thursday these 60 million were not found.
In the absence of the reconfirmation of a specific form of protection for frail workers and parents under 14, the obligation to attend returns from 1 August. For them the only lifeline remains the agreements on smart working that in recent months large groups and individual companies have entered into with their respective trade union representatives to meet not only the parents of young children or those with disabilities, but also disabled in situations of ascertained seriousness and caregivers. In companies where these agreements have not been signed, the laws prior to Covid remain: spaces are tightened, the number of admitted profiles is reduced and bureaucratic steps become more complicated.
Again on the basis of the company agreements, stipulated on the basis of the protocol signed in recent months by the Ministry and Labor with the social partners, from 1 September all the other workers who have benefited from the simplified regime in recent months will be able to continue working from home but with the specific procedures defined in each company. Even for these subjects, however, in the absence of a specific agreement on agile work, at the end of the month they will have to return in attendance.
Despite the demands of the unions, in fact, even the emergency procedure applied in many workplaces due to Covid ends. There remains the only simplified modality relating to the communications they must make to the ministry.
After having insisted so much and having spent his word, however, Orlando does not give up. “Many and many”, as the minister himself explained via Facebook, are asking him for updates. “As is known – replied Orlando – I have proposed a rule for the extension on several occasions and also in the case of the Aid-bis Decree”, then “I have resubmitted a proposal and supported in the Council of Ministers an intervention in this direction to protect the more fragile and parents with young children, who until now have had the opportunity to organize work in an agile way without consequences for productivity and work tasks. Unfortunately, the necessary consensus was not found in the Council of Ministers on Thursday – concluded Orlando – but I did not give up and we will continue to intervene again in the conversion of the Aid-bis Decree ».