Referendum to repeal legislation that liberalised fixed-term contracts: the reasons for 'yes' and 'no' votes

The third referendum on 8 and 9 June concerns fixed-term contracts. The question promoted by the CGIL calls for the abrogation of the rules that have liberalised fixed-term contracts, with the introduction of specific reasons also for fixed-term contracts of less than twelve months. We delve into the subject with professors Arturo Maresca (labour law at La Sapienza University of Rome) and Franco Focareta (labour law at the University of Bologna). On the Sole 24 Ore website, the dossier on referendums.

Professor Focareta explains the reasons for the 'yes' vote to repeal these regulations. 'The fixed-term contract,' stresses Focareta, 'is one of the greatest tools for creating precariousness in our country. The legislation has been modified several times by the various governments that have succeeded one another. In the last one we have the total liberalisation of fixed-term contracts, because for the first twelve months no specific reason is required to put a term to a contract. Even in a labour market context in which employment overall is growing today, we still have strong recourse to hiring with fixed-term contracts, which leads many workers in our country to a situation of uncertainty and precariousness. Workers who cannot rent a house, cannot take out a mortgage and so on. The referendum would reintroduce a selective and restrictive criterion for hiring fixed-term workers, i.e. there must be a reason. If the referendum question were to be accepted, the reason would be that fixed-term employment would only be permitted in the cases and for the reasons provided for by the collective agreements signed by the most representative trade unions, thus leaving it up to the social partners to identify appropriate reasons, i.e. concrete reasons that can authorise the use of this instrument'.

Professor Maresca why vote 'no' and what impact would a 'yes' vote have on the labour market? "Why not, because the current rule, which. as Professor Focareta said is a rule that has been reworked several times by the legislator, is a balanced rule. In essence,' Maresca recalls, 'it says that in the first twelve months I can make an acausal fixed-term contract and thereafter up to 24 months I must have reasons established by collective bargaining. If the referendum passes we would have a system of fixed-term contracts that does not even allow companies to make fixed-term contracts in the face of extraordinary, unforeseeable increases in production. That is, companies could only and exclusively make fixed-term contracts to replace workers. This did not happen even when there was the strictest law on fixed-term contracts, in Law 230 of 1962. It is said, collective agreements can intervene. Yes, collective agreements can intervene. But apart from the aspect that not all companies are covered by collective agreements, then as long as there is no collective agreement, there is no fixed-term employment even for exceptional temporary increases in activity. It is a rule that is not even in line with the European directive'.