The Italian Constitutional Court (the “Court”) has partially repealed the “Jobs Act” reform of 2015 that introduced, among other things, a predictable calculation criteria for the monetary compensation to be paid in case of unlawful dismissal (2 months’ salary for each year of service, with a minimum threshold and a maximum cap). The full decision of the Court has not yet been issued, but based on the text of a press release relating to the…

The need to update existing labour laws in light of the rapid changes introduced by the digital economy is one of principal issues under the “new ways of working” debate and has made the  headlines in many Italian papers, including the leading daily, Il Sole24Ore.  We need to use the legal tools that are available to us today, with modifications if necessary, in order to meet the challenges of the so called “gig economy”. Are…

On 31 May 2018, at the City Hall of Bologna (the fourth most populous city in northern Italy), the city’s mayor, representatives of Italy’s three main workers unions (CGIL, CISL and UIL), and two food delivery companies active in Bologna (Sgnam and Mymenu) met and signed the “Paper of fundamental rights of the digital worker in the urban environment.” (the Riders’ Statute). The Riders’ Statute aims to grant riders who work for food delivery companies…

On May 7, 2018 the Labour Court of Turin handed down a landmark decision in a case brought by delivery bike drivers or couriers (“riders”) working for Foodora, an online food delivery company that offers meal delivery in 10 countries worldwide, including Italy. Amongst other things, the riders, each with a freelance work contract with Foodora, sought a relabeling of their work contracts from the “freelance” category to the “subordinate employment agreement” category. In effect,…

An employee of an Italian university in Rome has successfully obtained a two-day paid leave of absence from work to care for his pet dog, which had undergone surgery and required special assistance for an additional day to recover. The Italian animal rights association, LAV, advised the employee on submitting his successful request to the university.…

The Italian Data Protection Authority (IDPA) is increasingly faced with issues relating to the ways employers may monitor the Internet usage of its employees. In 2016, the Authority handed down two important decisions on this topic. In the first decision, the IDPA stated that an Italian University (the University of Chieti and Pescara) was acting unlawfully in the way that it used e-mails to trace the identity of Internet users. This University, without having given…

In a decision dated December 7, 2016, Italy’s Supreme Court – the Corte di Cassazione – confirmed that the dismissal of an individual employee for redundancy can be legally grounded solely on business-related reasons, such as improving the company’s competitiveness, reducing costs, or increasing profits. The decision was based on the constitutional principle of “freedom of private enterprise.”…