Who wants to bomb employment contracts?
Do you know what was said at the CGIL organizational conference on Spain and fixed-term employment contracts? Giuliano Cazzola's comment
"The rain in Spain wets the countryside": is a tongue twister who (with some adjustments) became famous thanks to an old film (My Fair Lady) starring the great Audrey Hepburn. At the organization conference of the CGIL in Rimini, Spain was called into question by Pier Paolo Bombardieri ( omen nomen ) about an agreement between the government and the social partners on the reform of fixed-term contracts. The secretary general of UIL, in his greeting speech (we saw him on television screens with the face of great occasions, pronouncing his “ die is cast '') said that the government must be asked to follow suit Spain where fixed-term contracts have been abolished. Which, as we shall see, does not correspond to the truth. The situation in that country is very different from ours, as the share of fixed-term work is now equal to 25% of subordinate employment relationships (in Italy, in line with the European average, we are stably around 12-13%) . Then the fixed-term hires are part of the physiology of work to replace workers or face seasonal jobs and production peaks. This is what was established in Spain, on the initiative of the European Commission which had conditioned the disbursement of the first tranche (12 billion) of the Recovery fund to a reform of the labor market. Fixed-term contracts cannot last more than six months (or a year in the presence of collective agreements) and can be used by companies for no more than 90 days in a year. As can be seen, it seems excessive to speak of abolition, even if the downsizing is evident, with regard, however, to a previous discipline that had no reliable comparisons with the Italian one.
Then it is not correct to '' be smart '': to choose '' fior da fiore '' from the rules of the labor market of another country and grasp what is needed. The difference between the discipline of the Spanish employment relationship with the Italian one concerns, as a matter of priority, the rules of dismissal.
If the Labor Judge, upon the employee's appeal, deems the dismissal as "improceding" (illegitimate) the company to pay the dismissed employee an indemnity equal to 33 days of wages per year of service, up to a maximum of 24 monthly payments. Many explanations do not seem necessary to identify the differences with the current withdrawal system in Italy (including the provisions of the permanent contract with increasing protections referred to in Legislative Decree no. 23/2015).
With us – before the law n.604 / 1966 (which introduced the justified reason) and the law n.300 / 1970 (which established the obligation to reinstate) – when the dismissal ad nutum was in force pursuant to article 2118 of the civil code (vi it was only the obligation to give notice), the use of fixed-term work was severely limited by law n.230 / 1962 in which there were rigid causalities. As stated in Article 1:
'' The employment contract is considered to be indefinite, with the exceptions indicated below.
The affixing of a term to the duration of the contract is allowed:
a) when this is required by the special nature of the working activity deriving from its seasonal nature;
b) when the recruitment takes place to replace workers who are absent and for whom the right to retain the job exists, provided that the name of the replaced worker and the cause of his replacement are indicated in the fixed-term employment contract;
c) when the recruitment takes place for the execution of a work or a service defined and predetermined over time having an extraordinary or occasional nature;
d) for processing in successive phases that require different workers, for specializations, from those normally employed and limited to the complementary or supplementary phases for which there is no continuity of employment within the company;
e) in the writings of the artistic and technical staff of the production of shows.
The affixing of the term has no effect if it is not indicated in a written document.
Copy of the written document must be delivered by the employer to the employee.
However, writing is not necessary when the duration of the purely occasional employment relationship does not exceed twelve working days ''.
Moreover, article 2119 (still) provides that the contract can be terminated before the deadline only for just cause.
'' By bombing '' the fixed-term contract, the leader of the UIL adapted to the environment of the organizational assembly of the '' elder sister '' after the landlord had launched an intemperate towards the government: "In confrontation with the government and businesses we want to send a clear message: enough precariousness – Maurizio Landini said – "We must put an end to this form of work that prevents any life project for many young people, many women, which hinders the growth and development of Noon. Enough precariousness means canceling forms of work that deny people's dignity and favor their exploitation ”.
These things happen when, in just over a month, the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Marco Biagi at the hands of the Br.
Biagi rightly believed that the existing fragmentation in the reality of the labor market could be addressed in an adequate and pertinent way – and useful to companies and workers – only through the provision of a range of specific contracts aimed at regulating the diversity of employment relationships. work, instead of imposing on them, through legislation, a sort of reductio ad unum in the context of a permanent contract (no longer “ single '', even if for a long time it was thought that this was a possible solution) less oppressive and police as regards the protection of dismissal.
The most recent legislation, up to the jobs act , has followed this path. Attempts to divert – such as the so-called Dignity decree – have failed miserably, because greater work flexibility is not an attack by the lurking Reaction, but a requirement of the labor market.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/chi-vuole-bombardare-i-contratti-di-lavoro/ on Sat, 12 Feb 2022 07:49:13 +0000.