The Court of Cassation, with ruling no. 2862 filed on 6/2/2020, declared that a single member of the Rappresentanza Sindacale Unitaria (RSU) calling the union meeting is a right by law. According to this court, the 2014 National Multi-Industry Agreement (Representation Consolidating Act) sanctions this right as inviolable. This right is a prerogative to assign not only to the RSU considered collectively, but also to each of its members. However, the Court of Cassation lays down one condition necessary for the right to be recognised as fully legal. Specifically, the RSU member requesting that the meeting be called must be a member “elected from the lists of a union that, in the company of reference, has powers of representation pursuant to Art. 19 of Law 300/1970, consequent to Constitutional Court ruling no. 231 of 2013”. In this way overturning what the judge of first instance and the local Court of Appeals had established, the Court of Cassation upheld the appeal of the union organisation FIOM CGIL. The Court of Cassation declared the conduct of the company that had not granted one hour of paid union meeting as anti-union, pursuant to Art. 28 of the Workers’ Statute, because it had been called by only the RSU members elected from the lists of the petitioner union.
