TAR, unlawful precepts for the November 2023 transport strike
In the absence of the grounds of urgency and necessity, a report to the Guarantee Commission was mandatory. MIT sentenced to pay 3,000 euros to the trade unions
Key points
The measure by which the ministry of Transport has imposed the pre-emption and reduction to four hours of the national strike of all public and private services called for 17 November 2023, 'does not appear to be adequately justified and was adopted, in this case, in the absence of the fundamental assumption that can only justify it', namely 'without the prior notification by the Commission of guarantee strikes in essential public services'. With this motivation, the Lazio Regional Administrative Court brands as illegitimate the cut of hours in the duration of abstention from work ordered by the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Matteo Salvini. A measure rejected in the absence of the "requisites of necessity and urgency" provided by Article 8 of Law 146/1990, which states that ministerial precepts "are an extraordinary instrument".
The administrative judges have thus upheld the appeal lodged by Cgil, Filt CGIL, Uil and Uiltrasporti and sentenced the Ministry of Transport to pay 'in favour of the plaintiffs' 3,000 Euros, 'plus accessories and reimbursement of the unified contribution, where paid'. Article 8 in fact provides that, as the Regional Administrative Court recalls, 'the power to issue warnings may be exercised by the Ministry of Transport on its own initiative on the recommendation of the Guarantee Commission or, in cases of necessity and urgency' and that the regulations on strikes in essential public services are 'meticulously regulated, in addition to Law 146/1990, by agreements, self-regulatory codes and, above all, by the deliberations of the Commission, to which the legislator has attributed the normal assessment and verification of the modalities of the strike as well as the power to adopt the necessary measures'.
The previous
A ruling that follows a similar verdict by the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, which, in a monocratic decree, had granted the request by the basic trade union union union union to suspend the order of Minister Matteo Salvini of 10 December 2024, on the occasion of the general strike called for Friday 13 December 2024. On that occasion, too, the minister had ordered the reduction of the strike to four hours. And even then, the justification for the stop order had been similar: there were no grounds to precept, in the absence of the report to the Commission.
The union's reaction
He expressed his satisfaction for the decision of the TAR, the secretary of the CGIL Maurizio Landini: "Today's sentence of the TAR defeats the Minister of Transport: the precept against the general strike of 17 November 2023 is illegitimate, the right to strike has therefore beenviolated. The Tribunal - says Landini - has in fact ascertained the illegitimacy of the order with which the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport had authoritatively curtailed the general strike. The TAR recognised that the government had compressed the right to strike in violation of the legal prerequisites provided by Article 8 of Law 146 of 1990'.
For the CGIL leader, 'the ruling is lapidary: there were neither the reasons of necessity nor those of urgency that the law requires to justify such a disruptive intervention on the right to strike'. The CGIL and the UIL, who had crossed their arms together and lodged the appeal against the precepts, 'thus see their reasons fully recognised'.
