De Luca & Partners managing partner Vittorio De Luca, discusses the legislative measures that introduced the ban, initially generalised and later sectorial, of dismissals for economic reasons. The government has reached an agreement with the social partners on the dismissal prohibition, what is your take on it? “The agreement includes a “commitment” to use all existing social safety nets before resorting to redundancies, in particular the use of wage subsidies,” he stated. “The agreement in question, structured as it is, represents a pure form of recommendation and certainly not an obligation. Faced with a generalised ban from March 2020 and until March 2021, we are now faced with a diversified framework: with the Support Decree and the law converting the Support Decree bis, the ban on dismissals has been partly concluded and partly extended at certain conditions”. Looking at the European situation, the European Union has basically rejected the measure in effect from March 2020, underlining that Italy is the only Member State to have introduced a generalised ban on dismissals from the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis.
What do you think about this? “With the Recommendations published on June 2 the European Commission explained how the ban on dismissals was not particularly effective and turned out to be unnecessary considering the extensive use of systems aimed at maintaining jobs. The Commission rejected the measure pointing out that it is a measure that is to the advantage of permanent employees and detrimental for fixed-term, temporary or seasonal workers. He continued – it is necessary to emphasise that the freezing of entire manufacturing sectors risks being counterproductive because it hinders the necessary adjustment of the workforce to changing company needs”.
