ABSTRACT: The redundancy payment, originally created to provide "aimed interventions, limited in time, and applied to the economic realities with ongoing processes of transformation", now carries out opposite functions. It is one of the means with which "the apparatus of party-union mediation" legitimates its function. In the forms it has assumed it is unknown "in the countries of classical democracy" where the labour market is "extremely flexible and immediate"; in Italy the system fuels the industrial groups that have "political, ministerial and editorial ties". It must therefore be eliminated and replaced by "more transparent means".

(1994 - IL QUOTIDIANO RADICALE, 22 November 1993)

The redundancy payment in Italy has by now assumed completely different functions and objectives from those for which it was originally created. The initial objective was providing aimed interventions, limited in time and applied to economic realities with ongoing processes of transformation and modernization.

Therefore, it was a means aimed to support the transformations imposed by the market and favour its evolution. The current situation is completely different, and in certain respects opposite. In the definition and administration of these years, the redundancy payment presents the characteristics of a generic intervention, of non-specific assistance, and it is thus driven by criteria that are largely outside if not against the national and international evolution of the markets.

Why has an intervention born out of justified needs been transformed and totally altered? The basic motivations lie in the particular evolution of the Italian political and institutional organization.

The Italian democracy presents marked peculiarities and differences with respect to the Anglo-Saxon classical democracies. One of them is the lack of a direct relation between citizens and state. In our country categories have arisen that carry out functions of "social and institutional mediators", full-time. Parties, unions, category organizations have increasingly become "necessary" mediators and interpreters (stable and irremovable) between citizens and state, between labour and workers.

In this context the redundancy payments fits in perfectly, which must be asked and obtained through the apparatus of party-union "mediation" which is thus legitimated in its diffusion and stability. In the current forms and diffusion it is not present in the countries of classical democracy. In these countries the labour market is far more flexible and immediate, without the typical Italian restrictions and bonds that alterate the market conditions because, for instance, industrial groups that have strong political, ministerial and editorial ties can easily benefit from an extensive use of the redundancy payment, and therefore of an undue subsidy to the detriment of others, thus altering the conditions of the market and influencing its evolution.

It is legitimate to wonder whether it would not be better to allocate the financial resources that are currently used in the redundancy payment for more transparent means that do not alter the market and do not foster a "practical mediation".

Transforming and bringing the dole to acceptable levels, for instance, could be a simple and effective alternative which would not, in any case, cause the current market distortions.