Collective redundancies, Urso's study doubles time limits for procedures

Surprisingly, the regulation on collective redundancies is back in the government's sights. Turning the spotlight on law 223 of 1991 is the Minister for Enterprise and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, who first in the Council of Ministers at the beginning of the week, and then at the Automotive table last Thursday, emphasised the need to 'update the legislation on the closure of production sites and collective redundancies and make it consistent with our industrial and employment policy'. An intervention, Minister Urso added, that will have to be carried out in 'close cooperation with the employers' and trade unions'.

The issue is extremely delicate, also in light of the repeated calls by the Constitutional Court not to multiply regulatory interventions, but to make the discipline on dismissals more homogeneous and uniform. From what we learn, Mimit technicians are reasoning about a rule that would avoid a wave of collective redundancies linked to some major crises in industrial sectors, which could lead to substantial job losses, also under the impetus of the ecological and digital transitions. In Automotive alone, trade unions have estimated up to 70,000 jobs at risk for the implementation of the European regulation that envisages the end of the endothermic engine from 2035; rules that the Italian government itself is contesting in Europe.

In the drafts in circulation, the proposal being studied by Mimit, despite the fact that this is a matter that typically belongs to the Ministry of Labour, provides for the outright doubling of the time limit for collective redundancy procedures. In companies that make at least 99 redundancies, it would be envisaged to double from 45 to 90 days the term for the joint examination in the trade unions and from 30 to 60 days the term for the examination in the institutions, if no agreement is reached between the parties.

As a result of this proposal, which is still at an embryonic stage, there would be four procedural cases of collective dismissals. In cases where the number of workers affected by collective dismissal procedures is less than ten, Article 4(8) of Law 223/1991 reduces the terms of the joint examination between the parties to half. The second procedure is what could be defined as 'ordinary', which provides 45 and 30 days, respectively, for the joint examination at the trade union and institutional levels. The third procedure is the one defined by the former minister Andrea Orlando, in an anti-delocalisation key, which has remained almost unimplemented, and which applies to employers who, in the previous year, employed an average of at least 250 employees under employment contracts. According to this legislation, an employer who intends to close a site by dismissing at least 50 workers is required to give written notice of the intention to the company trade union representatives or the unitary trade union representation, as well as to the territorial branches of the trade union associations that are comparatively more representative at national level, to the regions concerned, to the Ministry of Labour, and to the former Economic Development (now MIM).

The communication made at least 90 days before the start of the procedure indicates the reasons, number and professional profiles of the personnel employed. Within 60 days of the communication, the employer draws up a plan to limit the employment and economic fallout from the closure and submits it to the entities listed above, which cannot last more than 12 months. Within thirty days of its submission, the plan is discussed with the trade unions, regions and ministries concerned. In short, Minister Urso's proposal would only make the current regulatory framework more cumbersome, taking the form of the fourth procedure on collective redundancies.