A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #31-25 - Endless Work. Overtime, Nights, and Holidays (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Tax Exemption for Overtime and Holiday Work: The New Face of Voluntary 
Servitude ---- The Meloni government's budget law celebrates endless 
work: those who give up time, rest, and social life are rewarded with a 
few extra euros. The extra pay becomes an instrument of moral and fiscal 
blackmail. ---- In its budget bill, the Meloni government triumphantly 
announces the tax exemption for overtime, nighttime, and holiday work. A 
measure that, at first glance, might seem to benefit workers: lower 
taxes mean more money in their paychecks. But behind this apparent 
generosity lies a precise and disturbing message: work more, give up 
your time, and perhaps you can afford to survive a little better.

The sense of domination is complete. After years of rhetoric about 
"merit" and "productivity," the state is once again promoting work as a 
moral virtue, a patriotic duty. Those who agree to work nights, on 
holidays, or beyond the eight-hour mark are elevated to civic paragons. 
It's yet another form of discipline, disguised as a tax incentive.
The state rewards voluntary submission, and capitalism thanks them: more 
hours of work at lower costs, without the need to hire.

This turns the meaning of social achievements on its head. Shorter 
working hours, weekly rest, the right to a life beyond the factory and 
the office were the results of decades of struggle. Now they return to 
being economic variables to be monetized.
It's no longer about freeing up time, but about selling time, as if life 
were a reservoir to be emptied for the profit of others. Sunday, once a 
symbol of collective freedom, becomes an individual opportunity for profit.

The argument is always the same: "those who work harder should be 
rewarded." But in reality, the reward is a tax handout that doesn't 
change the essence of precariousness, nor structural inequality. Those 
who work harder don't become free, they just become more tired.
And while the government cuts healthcare, schools, and welfare, it 
presents itself as a benefactor to those willing to forgo rest, 
transforming hardship into merit.

This is nothing new. From the corporate propaganda of fascism to the 
"Work Plan" and the neoliberal reforms of recent decades, every crisis 
of Italian capitalism has been addressed in the same way: by invoking 
the "duty to work more."
Today, with updated language, Meloni reiterates that same ideology. The 
idea that freedom consists in being able to choose to work forever, that 
happiness is an income tax deduction, that dignity depends on the number 
of hours worked.

But the anarchist perspective reverses the paradigm.
We don't ask to be paid more for working beyond our limits: we ask to 
work less to live more.

Freedom is not born from sacrifice, but from freed time. Work is not a 
destiny, it is a means; and when it becomes an end, it becomes domination.

This is why every tax break on sacrifice is a tax on freedom.

In a country where people die from work and survive on overtime, the 
promise of "a few extra euros if you give up your Sunday" is a mockery. 
It's the social pact of the new millennium: the state lets you breathe, 
as long as you keep producing.

Freedom, however, begins precisely when we stop obeying that ancient 
order that confuses toil with virtue and submission with merit.

Antonio Caggese

https://umanitanova.org/il-lavoro-infinito-straordinari-notturni-e-festivi/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en