Social protection

Final go-ahead from the Senate for the bill on workers with cancer: leave is increased from 6 to 24 months

With the green light from the Senate, the package of measures that improves the protection of employees and self-employed persons suffering from cancer, rare or chronic illnesses but does not grant them any right to remuneration is now law

by Barbara Gobbi

8 July 2025

Aggiungi Il Sole 24 Ore
ai preferiti su Google

The doctor is discussing with the patient after a physical examination of the results and treatment guidelines.

5' min read

5' min read

For employees with cancer or rare and chronic disabling diseases, a series of additional guarantees have been added: the right to keep their jobs for up to 24 continuous or fractioned months - from the current 180 days - the possibility of redeeming this so-called 'comporto' period by voluntarily paying contributions, the availability of 10 hours a year for visits and analyses in addition to those already recognised by law and by collective agreements, and priority access to smart working, but only at the end of the leave and if 'compatible with the tasks performed'.

These are the main innovations contained in Bill 1430 'Provisions concerning job preservation and paid leave for examinations and medical treatment in favour of workers suffering from oncological, invalidating and chronic diseases', unanimously approved by the Senate definitively and without changes compared to the version approved last March (also unanimously) by the Chamber of Deputies, after a painful process started in the last legislature and conditioned by budget requirements. The new law originates in the legislative initiative of the opposition (Debora Serracchiani, PD) and had as rapporteur in the Senate Elena Murelli (Lega), achieving bipartisan convergence on two issues, the right to work and the right to health, which are constitutionally guaranteed. And Health Minister Orazio Schillaci applauds the new law: 'After the law on oncological oblivion, Italy takes another decisive step forward in support of those who face long and complex courses of treatment and rehabilitation: health is put at the centre, ensuring those suffering from oncological, invalidating and chronic pathologies more security and professional stability. Today we are giving another sign of civilisation and humanity'.

The context

The measure on 'leave of absence' also comes as a natural corollary to the oncology leave law, a milestone in the protection of civil rights in the country, strongly desired by patients' associations and fully supported by Parliament, created to guarantee broad protection for people living with cancer. We are talking about some 3.6 million people - one in three of whom is of working age - who, thanks to the chronic nature of the disease and even if still undergoing treatment, have the desire and need to continue to be socially active, including at work.

And yet, precisely on the issue of the possibility of reconciling work rhythms, efficiency, and the management of therapies, controls, and 'fatigue', the law on leave is still 'timid' with respect to recognised rights, and runs the risk of not being able to counteract the financial toxicity that Aiom (the Medical Oncology Association) estimates characterises 26% of patients already at the beginning of therapy, with a 35% deterioration in the quality of life and a consequent 20% increase in the risk of death. All this adds to the burden of the disease and the new law currently only partially intervenes. First of all, because absence from work, although from now on it will be guaranteed for up to two years, also means giving up pay, aggravated by the impossibility of carrying out even occasional other activities. An element that risks working against the full protection of workers. Yet, the priority of countering the phenomenon of abandoning one's job due to the need for treatment is one of the indications contained in the National Cancer Plan 2023-2027.

News

For public or private employees with a recognised disability of at least 74 per cent, the new law triggers the possibility of applying for a continuous or fractioned leave of up to 24 months. During this period, the job is retained but one is not entitled to pay nor can one - a 'rigidity' opposed by the opposition and most associations - carry out another work activity. This period also does not count for seniority nor for social security purposes, although, as mentioned above, there is the possibility of redeeming it.
At the end of the leave, the worker is given 'right of precedence' on agile work if it is compatible with the tasks.

In addition, a prescription from the family doctor or specialist of a public or private facility will be sufficient to legitimise the possibility granted by the new law to employees to take advantage - as of January 2026 - of (just) ten extra hours of leave per year to devote themselves to examinations, instrumental examinations, analyses and 'frequent medical treatment'. All this, with recognition of an economic allowance 'determined in the measures and according to the rules provided for by the regulations in force on sickness' and figurative coverage.

The right to the ten extra hours of leave is also granted to employees who have minor children with oncological diseases, in active phase or early follow-up, or who are rare or chronic patients with the same constraint of at least 74% disability.

The rights of the "self-employed"

For self-employed workers who are in the same 'sickness' condition, the suspension of the performance of the activity carried out continuously for the client applies within a limit of 300 days per calendar year.

What changes between public and private

In the private sector, the economic allowance for the extra ten hours of leave will come directly from the employers who will then recover it by means of a balance with the contributions due to the social security agency. While in the public sector, for example in schools, the public administration will provide for the replacement of the worker and here the law commits resources, estimated at 1.24 million per year starting from 2026, from the Fund for the improvement of the educational offer, which is increased ad hoc. More generally, for the new regulation on the ten additional hours of leave for sickness-related visits, the law estimates resources ranging from 20.9 million for 2026 to 25.2 million for 2035. Resources to be found in the reduction of the Fondo esigenze indifferibili at the Mef, from which will also be recovered the 500,000 euro for 2026 and the 20,000 euro per year from 2027 necessary for the adaptation of the technological infrastructure of the Inps.

What remains to be done

"From now on, people diagnosed with cancer are no longer at risk of being dismissed. This is a law for the dignity of the sick person and for the entire civil community'. Seeing the classic 'glass half full' is Annamaria Mancuso, President of Salute Donna odv and coordinator of the Group 'Health: an asset to defend, a right to promote', to which 46 patients' associations belong.
But the new law is considered by most parliamentarians as well as associations as a 'first step': the main amendments have in fact resulted in agendas, reformulated, which commit the government on a series of priorities. And this is why realities such as the Federation of Voluntary Associations in Oncology (Favo) evoke the classic 'mouse' hatched from a much broader starting point - in terms of civic protection - that goes back to the first proposal presented by Favo itself as long as 10 years ago in 2015. Favo national secretary Elisabetta Iannelli explains: "Providing for remuneration, increasing the extra hours of leave per year granted by law for visits and examinations, which today are very limited, allowing the possibility of carrying out another activity outside work, introducing the obligation - at zero cost - for the employer to notify the person concerned within 30 days of the imminent exhaustion of the period of comporto. These are the indications that we would have expected to be included in the new law, and which inevitably come out weakened by the inclusion in the orders of the day committing the government to continue to implement the rights of these workers with illnesses'.