Nurses: the Court of Cassation ‘secures’ the right of shift workers to meal vouchers
Benefit granted to healthcare staff working ‘shift work’ who are on duty for more than 6 hours
Shift-working healthcare staff who work for more than six hours are entitled to a meal voucher. Any other arrangement would contravene Article 8(1) of Legislative Decree No. 66 of 8 April 2003 (“Where the daily working hours exceed the six-hour limit, the worker must be granted a break, the arrangements and duration of which are laid down in collective labour agreements, for the purpose of regaining mental and physical energy and, where applicable, taking a meal”) and with Article 29 of the National Collective Labour Agreement for the healthcare sector of 20 September 2001 (“All employees are entitled to use the canteen”).
This was ruled by the Court of Cassation (Order No. 24866 of 2026), which dismissed the appeal against the judgement in which the Rome Court of Appeal had recognised the right of a shift-working nurse at a hospital to receive meal vouchers for working shifts lasting more than six hours. According to the company’s regulations, this entitlement would have applied ‘only in the case of shifts lasting eight hours’.
The Supreme Court’s ruling
In its appeal against the Regional Court’s judgment, the Health Authority had, on the one hand, pointed out that collective labour agreements may stipulate a break duration shorter than the standard one (whilst setting the mandatory minimum at ten minutes, as laid down by law) in order to ensure the continuity of service. On the other hand, it had invoked Article 27(4) of the 2016–2018 National Collective Labour Agreement (‘Where the daily working hours exceed six hours, staff, provided they are not on shift, are entitled to a break of at least 30 minutes and, where applicable, to take a meal’), emphasising that ‘for the night shift, an allowance was already provided to compensate for the normal absence, during that shift, of the meal service’.
Course choice confirmed
An argument that missed the mark. The Supreme Court has confirmed the established position that the right to use meal vouchers:
- constitutes a welfare benefit, linked to the employment relationship only in a purely incidental manner, intended to reconcile the needs of the service with the employee’s day-to-day needs (Court of Cassation, judgement No. 5547 of 1 March 2021);
