The proposal of a Program for Jobs originates from the strong persuasion that no new growth or development phase will start for our Country unless we choose labour and the creation of jobs as starting points.
Employment in our Country has become contracted, impoverished, precarious; for many people it seems an unachievable target, many others worry about protecting the one they have.
The great inequalities in our Country can be defined by the lack of employment, the conditions of the South, of women, of youth and of people over 50.
Employment has become impoverished also because the ideology has prevailed that the public involvement should be reduced and that the welfare state is a cost rather than a factor for development and improved quality of life.
The phase we are facing cannot be only one of austerity, as in the past few months; the focus of policies has to change.
To create jobs and to build a Program for Jobs requires having a vision of our Country, of its problems, of its backwardness as well as of its assets.
To create jobs and choices for development implies strong innovation, respect for work and its conditions, the involvement and mobilisation of the many subjects who do not surrender to decline.
In order to involve and mobilise, a collective concept of the Country, and of the direction to take, is necessary.
To create jobs means to defend and to qualify the current employment by reviving and renovating deeply the industrial base and the productive specialization of the Country. All this, however, is not enough to meet the target of full employment. For this reason, CGIL proposes to the future
government, to the forces of society, to politicians, to institutions, and to citizens, a Program for Jobs based on the fact that the main asset of Italy is the country itself, its territory, its culture, its historical and artistic heritage, its manufacturing tradition, the design and production represented by the best “made in Italy” products.
A first example of the important and necessary opening is the plural contribution offered by the “white paper” for the 2013 Program for Jobs.
Alongside the requalification of industry and services, the Program for Jobs is, first of all, a choice to secure the Country, a choice of prevention and enhancement, a new public ethics and respect for the common heritage. A choice of citizenship, of legality, of participation, of wealth redistribution.
A Program for Jobs contains both short and medium term targets; it has the purpose of creating jobs, the ambition of giving again a sense to public intervention as a drive for the economy.
Just because it cannot be realized in a short period of time, it needs a method, the identification of resources, and thus a planning, but also extraordinary choices, such as the proposal of a program for youth employment.
To propose again the crucial role of work, to invest in ideas and in actions for job creation, entails a policy for economic growth, a greater fairness in taxation and in income distribution, the protection of socially vulnerable subjects, a homogeneous supply of services to citizens, integration, the renovation of a stuck system, new economic policies based on strong innovation choices, supported by a radical tax reform.