Unlawful dismissal, here are the reasons for the 'yes' and 'no' votes in the CGIL referendum on Jobs Act

The 8 and 9 June referendum deadline is approaching. The first referendum promoted by the CGIL proposes the repeal of the rules of the Jobs Act that introduced the contract with increasing protections that, in cases of illegitimate dismissal, prevent the reinstatement in the job of the worker hired after 7 March 2015. Let's see the reasons for the 'yes' and 'no' votes to the repeal referendum, explained respectively by Professors Franco Focareta (Labour Law at the University of Bologna) and Arturo Maresca (Labour Law at La Sapienza University of Rome).

"The Jobs act," Professor Focareta explains, "introduced in 2015 an unjustifiable differentiation in the world of work in the protection for unlawful dismissals. For workers hired after March 2015 it became practically impossible to obtain reinstatement in the workplace in the face of unlawful dismissal, even the compensation protection was absolutely laughable compared to that provided by Article 18 of the Workers' Statute. The legislature and the Constitutional Court intervened several times to eliminate the most unacceptable parts of the Jobs Act, reducing its negative impact in terms of protection, but nevertheless serious unjustified differences persist in terms of protection between workers who can access Article 18 of the Statute with reinstatement and also with compensation, which is a minimum of twelve months' pay, as an alternative to reinstatement. Differences that would be eliminated with the referendum that would bring all workers back to the protection provided by Article 18 of the Workers' Statute, redesigned after the Fornero law, the interventions of the Constitutional Court and ordinary case law'.

'The current rule must be taken into account,' explains Professor Maresca, 'which is very different from the original Jobs act rule. The current rule provides for adequate compensation for damages in matters when the dismissal is unjustified, ranging up to 36 months' salary. And after last summer's interventions of the Constitutional Court, which provides for reinstatement even in the hypothesis of disciplinary dismissal, even in the hypothesis of dismissal for objective justification. So we have significant protection. Even in some cases the growing protection contract is more favourable than Article 18 of the Workers' Statute. Repealing the increasing protections would lead to a further diversification because we would have workers governed by Article 18 of the Statute, those with increasing protections up to the date of the referendum if it were allowed, and then those hired afterwards in the case of a yes vote in the referendum. However, what counts today is increasing protection because Article 18 of the Statute is now a residual rule and concerns 20 per cent of workers.