The novelties which will be introduced by the Consolidated act on the apprenticeship, which is under consideration by the experts of the Ministry of Labour, are certainly important. The general structure of the measure has the merit of having organized the different legislative and interpretative provisions of recent years. Article 2 is particularly interesting because establishes that the rules concerning the contract are completely submitted to proper inter-union agreements or to collective agreements concluded at national, local or company level. Another important aspect concerns the sanction regime: it is confirmed – on default of the training assignment for which the employer is responsible and which prevents the achievement of the contract purposes – the previous sanction regime but the inspector, before proceeding with the sanction application, has to “oblige” the employer, by an order disposition, to execute the not performed training within an appropriate period. Furthermore, for any breach of the collective agreement provisions (i.e. lack of the written form for the contract and for the individual plan, of the prohibition of paying by the piece, of the professional status and of the tutor presence), the employer shall be punished by a pecuniary administrative sanction from Eur 100 to Eur 600 and, in case of relapse, from Eur 300 to Eur 1,500. The law also states that the contract is open-ended for all three types of apprenticeship. It still holds that in each of the mentioned three types there will be a period during which the employer can freely withdraw from the contact: for example, at the maximum period of three years for professional qualification apprenticeship; at the end of the maximum period of training equal to six years in the professionalizing contract.
