On 24th June 2021, the dialogue “Work is an anointing of dignity. The scourge of precarious and deteriorated work at the dawn of the post-Covid world” took place at Palazzo Borromeo between Sister Alessandra Smerilli, Undersecretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and the Minister of Labor Andrea Orlando. The journalist Paola Severini Melograni was the moderator.
The Ambassador of Italy to the Holy See, Pietro Sebastiani, emphasized three fundamental aspects: 1) the growth of precarious work and in general the deterioration of job quality. According to the Ambassador, such elements highlight the need to reform the economic system from the foundations, since it has long been unable to produce sufficient jobs and decent work, caught between excessive financialization and income inequality, so that it can place man and the common good at the center, not just profit; 2) the “discarded” and among them all the women employed in the informal economy; 3) young people who suffer from increasing poverty, unemployment and volatility and who increasingly fall into anxiety and depression, as several scientific studies have demonstrated. The Ambassador concluded by quoting the words that the Holy Father addressed to the International Labor Organization (ILO) on June 17, 2021, namely that “if work is a relationship, then it must include the dimension of care, because no relationship can survive without care”. According to the Pope, it is necessary to develop the culture of solidarity in order to get out of the current crisis in better conditions.
Sister Alessandra Smerilli, after having pointed out that in some countries informal work represents 70% of existing work, argued that due to the pandemic the number of people who are unable to work and therefore have access to food will most likely increase. For this reason, the Food Systems Summit will be decisive in taking concrete action to resolve this crisis. In fact, Sister Smerilli reiterated that our societies must be restructured around work, because work is what gives dignity to people: to do this, the contribution of politics, states and above all businesses is fundamental. Furthermore, Sister Smerilli highlighted that financial stability is the objective set by the European Union today; however, now there is also the risk that an automatic credit recovery does not take into account the needs of those who are suffering. For this reason, the collaboration between banks and institutions is necessary. At the end of her speech, Sister Smerilli recalled the words of Pope Francis to the ILO: “Here we are not just referring to the work of assistance: the pandemic reminds us of its fundamental importance, which perhaps we have overlooked. Care goes further; it must be a dimension of all work. Work that does not take care, that destroys Creation, that endangers the survival of future generations, does not respect the dignity of workers and cannot be considered decent”.
The Minister of Labor, Andrea Orlando, emphasized the issue of “waste” and quoted the words of the Pope, highlighting that the greatest condemnation after the crisis is that of not taking advantage of the crisis itself. The minister said he posed three essential issues to the G20 under the Italian presidency: 1) the first concerns the inclusion of women and wage equality: women have suffered more from the pandemic in terms of employment since they are frequently employed in temporary employment relationships; 2) the second issue focuses on the response to the “stress-test” that the pandemic created for social protection systems: this revealed the great burden of seasonal, informal and precarious work; 3) the third issue concerns the impact of technology on work, which has deconstructed some rights that have been consolidated over time. Furthermore, Minister Orlando affirmed that the issue of poverty is closely connected to the issue of education: reactivating adult education paths is the condition by which mechanisms for the effective construction of a full citizenship of people are redefined.
The event ended with the awarding of the title of Officer of the Order of the Star of Italy by the Italian Ambassador Pietro Sebastiani to Sister Alessandra Smerilli.
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