The Regulation of Dismissal in Italy

Abstract

The regulation of dismissal has always played a central role in Italian labour law, whose main developments have been marked by reforms concerning this subject. Hence, the introduction of major legislation protecting against unjustified dismissal, symbolised by Article 18 of the 1970 Workers’ Rights Statute, heralded the ‘golden age’ of labour law. Conversely, the growing flexibilisation, which has affected Italian (and European) labour law especially since the 2000s, has led to a liberalisation, albeit partial, of the legal regulations concerning dismissal. In both cases, the ensuing debates have been highly charged politically and been much publicised in the media. This has always made a non-ideological approach to the subject difficult. The result, as will be seen, is a decidedly complicated system, made up of successive layers, and which needs to be streamlined. However, the political consensus for a new reform has not yet been reached, partly because of the difficult external context (the 2007–2008 financial crisis and its repercussions; the pandemic), and the issue is not currently on the government’s agenda. It must also be said that the successive reforms (in 2012 and 2015) did not so much concern the concept of ‘unfair dismissal’ as such, but rather the remedies regime of unfair dismissal, ie the consequences arising from a judicial finding of the unlawfulness of a dismissal. This does not mean, however, that the concept of justification of dismissal is free from controversy, at least as far as economic dismissal is concerned. In contrast, there is greater consensus on the subject of disciplinary dismissal. Having said that, the article will be organised as follows. Section 2 will provide an overview of how dismissal legislation has evolved in Italy and the reforms that have taken place. Sections 3–6 will deal with the different types of dismissal provided for under Italian law, which are respectively disciplinary dismissal, economic dismissal,