Iudicone, Feliciano

In December 2017, social partners renewed the collective agreement for the Italian logistics sector, which had expired two years earlier. The agreement, after a period of unrest, addresses continuing developments in the sector, which are significantly reshaping sectoral business and employment features. However, enforcement needs on-the-ground monitoring activities, to be implemented by unions and inspectors.

The increasing fragmentation of sectoral agreements in Italy is highlighted in a report, released in November 2017, by the tripartite National Economic and Labour Council. It adds that decentralised bargaining increasingly deals with performance-related pay and welfare benefits. Although this overall picture cannot be viewed as representative, it does shed light on recent trends.

Wage increases for public sector employees, industrial conflicts at steelmaker ILVA and Amazon, legislative measures on self-employed workers’ earnings and business incentives for private companies are the main topics of interest in this article. This country update reports on the latest developments in working life in Italy in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Two agreements on new rules governing industrial relations and representativeness, incentives for measures promoting work–life balance, and consultations on possible amendments of the pension system are the main topics of interest in this article. This country update reports on the latest developments in working life in Italy in the third quarter of 2017.

Italy’s parliament has introduced new voucher-based work schemes for occasional work. The regulations cap the amount that can be earned or paid in this way, and companies with more than five permanent employees may not use vouchers. However, there are few other limits on voucher-based work and the social partners have been critical.

Italy’s parliament has approved new legislation giving protection to self-employed workers and regulating ICT-based mobile work. Employer organisations have generally welcomed it, but unions criticise the legislation for its weak wording, the limited leeway left to collective bargaining, and for the lack of financial resources to back it.

Across European countries, the ‘employment contract’ has been, and still is, the point of reference for determining the rights and obligations of both workers and employers. When direct subordinated employment is disguised as self-employment, it is termed ‘bogus’. Work can be contracted in several different ways. The main distinction remains the one between ‘employment’ and ‘self-employment’: this is a prominent feature in all European legal systems, built around the concepts of ‘subordination’ and ‘autonomy’.

Employment relations remain defined vis-à-vis the standard employment relationship (permanent, full-time, direct). Fixed-term contracts are therefore understood as non-standard employment contracts by which an employer hires an employee for a fixed duration. The main difference between permanent and fixed-term contracts is the certainty, in the latter employment situation, of the expiry date.

Regulated at European level, the posting of workers is a practice used between companies located in different countries A worker is posted when their original employer sends them to work, for a temporary period, in another company. Posting has been defined as a specific form of labour mobility within the EU.

Among the fraudulent contracting of work practices, one of the most difficult to identify is the creation of sham companies (usually, in another country). Sham companies are essentially new entities created to disguise the real employer. Creating a company, even abroad, is – of course – legal and may well be institutionally and economically advisable.