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Unemployment, job insecurity, illegal labor: it is always more
employment emergency in Italy.
Along with an unemployment rate rising and the labor market too
plastered, there is to register a gradual loss of employment’s sense. A
condition exacerbated by the resignation of almost two million young
people in our country, who now even more are diligently seeking work. In
the light of this situation, it is to reconsider certainly the job
training, question today no longer avoidable. And the proof that the
occupation theme is now 'the problem of problems’ is also in the recent
report, drawn up by the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) and presented
in Rome, which offers some background lines for policy making in the
direction of a new culture of job. We talked with Sister Alessandra
Smerilli, Daughter of Mary Help of Christians: she teaches Economics at
the Pontifical Faculty of Education Sciences Auxilium and Economics of
cooperation at the Catholic University of Rome, and the new secretary of
the Scientific Committee and Organizing of the Social Weeks of Italian
Catholics of which she is a member since 2007.
In your view, how to overcome the large gap between study and work?
Especially in light of the finding that the university does not prepare
or mold talent for employment? And what can the Church do in this
difficult time for young people looking for a job that is lacking?
"As in all difficult moments of history, we will see a new dawn, a new
synthesis, which does not exist yet. I think it's very important to work
for a school that meets the needs of today, who knows how to put
together the intellectual formation and the meaning of work, work
experience and responsibility. The charisms are a source of great
innovations in history. If we think of our schools we must ask: are they
innovative experiences? Are they different from other schools? Have
they a more for the education of young people? If we do not propose
innovative experiences, from whom should we wait for?".
Pope Francis has repeatedly invited the youth people to live life
following the great ideals. There is a recipe to help a boy in the
delicate time when he compare himself to the work’s world and then with
his identity, respecting the great ideals called by the Holy Father?
"Recipes in this field there are none. Of course, young people must be
accompanied in the delicate stages of life when they have to decide what
to specialize in, if they go abroad for a master, if they stay there.
Above all, they should be helped to keep alive the ideals, even in
concrete situations, which sometimes ask to adapt to not chosen, not
dreamed works. The Church, as she already does, can help to distinguish
between the workplace and the meaning of work. Recalling his experience
of the concentration camps, Primo Levi wrote: "But at Auschwitz I often
noticed a curious phenomenon: the need of 'job well done' is so strong
as to push to do well the work imposed, as a slave. The Italian
bricklayer who saved my life, bringing me food in secret for six months,
he hated the Nazis, their food, their language, their war; but when they
put him to pull out of walls, he made them straight and solid, not for
obedience but for dignity" (Levi 1997, p. 85). To do well our work, even
when we do not like it, we do not recognize ourselves in it, says about
our dignity, says that we are something bigger and in excess compared
with what we're doing."
How can religious men and women help young people to live these
difficult economic times as an opportunity?
"First of all young people have many more resources than we normally
think. They are adapting very well to the situation and do so with great
creativity. We, as religious men and women, should have a more positive
outlook on young people and their potential. Second, in a society that
does not leave room for the young, especially for positions of
responsibility, we should instead bet on them, from their ideas, help
them to achieve them. Finally, I believe that this historical moment
calls us to greater sharing with the anxieties of young people and the
problems of work: we can not live as normal the fact that while in the
majority of our communities the standard of living is always the same
(and room and board accommodation are insured for us), young people can
not build a future because they are forced to live as temporary workers,
or to emigrate ... Our communities can do much in the way of sharing. I
guess buildings or parts of them made available to cooperatives of young
people, funds for micro-credit in favor of the young, paths of
entrepreneurship. We can do so much, if we accept the invitation of Pope
Francis to come out, to the suburbs of existence."
There are many sides
of the coin: those who have a permanent full-time employment and often
fails to reconcile the schedule of work with those of their own family.
In this regard there are many women forced to give up the job
especially when they have young children. How to counter this phenomenon
of women who leave the labor market?
"The phenomenon is mainly cultural, even before economic (in particular
for companies). First, the issue of work-life balance is not just a
women's issue, but of family and work. It should not be seen only from
the part of the family, but also of the work that needs to be built for
families: everyone would benefit, even businesses. It is not an issue
related to the care of children, but it extends to the whole of life.
The time and manner of work have to be rethought, and many studies show
that in the companies who pay more attention to the rhythms of the
family, things work better and workers are more focused, because they
have fewer worries."
Another aspect not to be overlooked is that of wage differences between
men and women in our society. How to deal with and overcome this
situation?
"Even here, the theme is cultural: the wage gap is not related either to
the difference in labor productivity or the quality of the work. There
are several explanations for this fact. I will mention only two. The
first is related to the difference in behavior between men and women as
regards to provide incentives for. Experiments and empirical evidence
show that on average women, to culture or nature, undertake more and are
more consistent in the work, but in the presence of external incentives,
again on average, men increase their productivity. 'Le donne non
chiedono (Women do not ask)' is the title of a book published by
Il Sole 24 Ore: from the available data it would seem that men are
more responsive to incentives, in most forms of payment related to
productivity, while women sometimes in the face of individual incentives
get jammed, as if they did not want to compete, and I think that's also
why the forms of payment and wage levels over time assume a different
trend for men and women.
The second explanation is related to the topic of gratuity: the woman
has always been given the characteristic of living prominently gratuity,
in the care, family, and even in the work. But a mistaken association
between gratuity and free of charge, led to non-evaluate the work of the
woman, especially one that does not pass through the market. The not
right conflict between gratuity, meaning free, and monetary
remuneration, has led to many forms of exploitation of women’s work, and
especially of the nun. And it seems as if the woman needs to make a few
things for her vocation and therefore it is not considered necessary the
just compensation. There is a need for greater awareness of these
issues, and the first that need to be convinced that you can work with
gratuity and not working for free, we are first of all, the women."
It is often spoken about 'feminine genius' in the debate within the
Church. But there is a specific female that can make a valuable
contribution to today's society and mitigate the tendency to
individualism, of which the work’s world needs be in large
multinationals as well as within in large organizations that refer to
the Church?
"I believe that we have not yet explored the potential of women in the
economy and in general in organizations. Also because up until now there
have been few opportunities for women to assume roles of responsibility.
The word economy comes from the greek 'oikos-nomos’, which means
management of the house: I am convinced that the economy will not be
renewed if you do not meet again with the feminine and with her genius.
The female carries with her some primates. First, the primacy of life on
the law, as demonstrates us the tragedy of Antigone, who dies because
disobeys the King, who prohibited worthily to honor her dead brother; as
demonstrate us the Egyptian midwives who disobey the commands of the
Pharaoh: how shows us Mary in the pride of the Magnificat, and in
the wedding feast of Cana. The female also carries the primacy of
practice over theory. Finally to the woman has always been recognized
the characteristic of living human relations not only as a tool, but as
an end in theirselves. And today, in a time when the demand for
relational goods (which for some years are recognized as economic
assets) has increased, the supply of such goods, in the family, in the
workplace, in the marketplace, it is also deeply linked the woman, and
her 'genius'.
As for the Church, an important statement was made by the theologian
Balthasar, who sees the life of the Church as a dialectic between two
principles, the Peter’s principle, linked to the objective dimension,
institutional and hierarchical, and Marian’s principle, or charismatic,
related to the horizontal and fraternal dimension. Balthasar, after
tying the Marian principle in the feminine, argues that without it: 'The
Church becomes a functionalist, soulless, a factory feverish unable to
stop, dispersed in noisy projects ... while people are turning away in
droves from a Church of this kind."
The just released report of CEI (Italian Bishop Conference) on
employment is also a proposal for a new culture of work. How do we built
it up from where?
"The report of the cultural project of the Italian Church on the
labor situation in Italy is an excellent text, even for the proposals
that it contains, in addition to the lucid analysis of the problems of
labor and the transformations that taking place. Among his proposals
there is that to free up the labor market and to renew the work’s
culture. It is proposed on the one hand to re-evaluate the importance
of the sense of the work, of the work done in a workmanlike manner as
one of the hallmarks of Italian labor, especially of the craftsman, on
the other to review some of the other categories, such as productivity,
for example, as a multidimensional concept and not just of quality. The
report stresses the importance of the enhancement of women's potential
to help change the workplace and then to make more human the work.
Finally, the art of job well done, should be taught at school, bringing
the work in the school and more school, more culture at the workplace.
Adriano Olivetti, Italian businessperson, had a library in his
factories, and the time spent by employees in the library was considered
'work' in all respects. The Benedictine monks studied and went to work
in the fields: from this union between intellectual and manual labor
innovations were born. I think we should go back to this summary, if we
want that the job today be not experienced as a nightmare by young
people (between the experience of insecurity and not to find the meaning
of what you do)."
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