In both the public and private sectors, all workers should have access to information on individual wage levels and average wage levels broken down by gender.
By 7 June 2026 EU states must implement European Directive 2023/970 which came into force on 6 June 2023. The directive introduces new obligations for employers on transparency and equal pay.
The goal of the European legislature is to reduce the wage gap through the introduction of specific pay transparency requirements.
According to the directive’s “recitals”, within the EU women earn on average 13 % less than men for the same work, and this gap stems from “a lack of transparency in pay systems”.
Scope and employers’ obligations
Going into the details of the EU provisions, the scope of the directive encompasses all employers, both public and private, and imposes obligations of wage transparency right from the selection stage.
Specifically, regarding the pre-employment stage, there is a requirement for employers to provide male and female job applicants with detailed information regarding job-specific wage levels. In addition, employers will be prevented from requesting information on current or past salaries of male and female job applicants.
On the other hand, employers are required to provide all male and female workers with access to information on individual wage levels and average wage levels broken down by gender during the employment relationship.
Additional disclosure and transparency requirements are then provided with respect to information on the gender pay gap identified by categories of workers and broken down by fixed and variable components of pay. In fact, such information should be addressed to all male and female workers, their representatives and, upon request, to the Italian Labour Inspectorate and equality bodies.
Under the directive this parties are entitled to seek clarification with respect to the information provided. Where pay differences found are not justified by objective criteria, it will be the employers’ obligation to remedy them.
Reporting on pay gap
The timing and frequency of these reports depends on the number of employees. In particular:
1) for employers with at least 250 employees, the obligation will take effect on 7 June 2027, and annually thereafter;
2) for employers with a workforce of between 150 and 249 employees, the obligation will take effect on 7 June 2027, and every three years thereafter;
3) for employers with a workforce of between 100 and 149 employees, the obligation will take effect on 7 June 2031, and every three years thereafter.
Continue reading the full version published in Norme & Tributi Plus Lavoro of Il Sole 24 Ore.
Since the beginning of 2023, a task force at law firm De Luca & Partners has been entirely dedicated to the new decree on Whistleblowing which requires employers to implement a system of safeguards and protection for those who report crimes and irregularities in the workplace. The task force offers legal support to companies in adopting the necessary procedures to ensure compliance with all aspects of the legislation.
According to a task force survey on the current state of play of actual implementation of the regulations by Italian companies, it appears that they are still far from compliant with the provisions that, by 17 December 2023, must be adopted by even the smallest organisations, with between 50 and 249 employees. Specifically, it is in the area of company procedures, such as the identification of breaches that can become reportable or the recipients of reports, that companies show a general lack of compliance. “We note a general tendency to underestimate the complexity of the activities to be carried out to comply with the provisions of the Whistleblowing Decree”, notes Vittorio De Luca, managing partner of De Luca & Partners. “Just to mention the main areas, all aspects of the process must be detailed in specific company procedures. Companies are delaying the careful consideration necessary to assess through which system, including computerised systems, they should make reports, in full compliance with current privacy legislation. Not only that, but it is also necessary to ensure that the disciplinary code adopted is adequate to avoid invalidating any disciplinary measures taken. And this is all in the context of regulatory framework that contains two significant risks for the failure to adopt an appropriate report management process: a fine of up to EUR 50,000, and the loss of the exemptions provided for in Italian Legislative Decree no. 231/01”, concludes Mr De Luca.
Continue reading the full version on L’Economia of Il Corriere della Sera.
By Order no. 29101 of 19 October 2023, the Italian Supreme Court ruled on the compensation claim for damages in a “straining” case. The employee took legal action because his superior had applied towards him a “stressful” method of control, generating a heated discussion during which the employee had suffered a ischemic attack. The Court of Appeal, despite having established that the conduct had taken place, had denied its illegality, rejecting the compensation claim for damages made by the employee, based upon the fact that it was not a case of mobbing (or bullying), as it was an isolated episode and was not done systematically with a clear vexatious aim protracted over time. The Supreme Court stated that, aside from the classification as mobbing or straining, what is important is that the act committed, even in isolation, is an unlawful act pursuant to Article 2087 of the Italian Civil Code, leading to violation of the interests of the employee which are protected at the highest level of the legal system. The Supreme Court also clarified that straining represents an attenuated form of mobbing (or bullying), not having the continuous nature of the vexatious acts, but still attributable to Article 2087 of the Italian Civil Code, and that, once ascertained, it involves acceptance of the damages compensation claim.
By Order of 13 November 2023, no. 31561, the Italian Court of Cassation ruled that, to fully comply with the repêchage obligation (obligation to relocate), it is necessary to assess whether hires made following the termination for justified objective reasons are of the same level of classification as the dismissed employee.
An employee, employed as a cashier in a bar, challenged her dismissal for abolition of her position.
Following the first instance judgment, in which it was ascertained that the termination was unlawful, the employer appealed.
The Territorial Court, reversing the ruling of the court of first instance, held that the dismissal was lawful. The court based this decision on evidence not only of the abolition of the job of cashier, but also of the fact that the worker had always and only performed the duties of cashier, having never performed duties as a counter or table attendant, tasks that were subsequently assigned to newly hired staff.
The judges of second instance also specified that “the fact – which is completely incidental and random – that multiple qualifications are placed in the same level of classification by the collective agreement is of no relevance. This allocation, in fact, is relevant for other purposes, i.e. to identify the regulatory and remuneration regime of the employment relationship of the employees thus classified, but it is completely <neutral>, i.e. irrelevant, for the purposes of the interchangeability of the related tasks”.
The Court of Appeal’s decision was appealed by the employee on several grounds.
The Italian Court of Cassation – accepting the appeal brought by the employee – ruled, preliminarily, that the employer, in fulfilling its repêchage obligation, cannot disregard careful consideration of the national collective bargaining agreement (contratto collettivo nazionale di lavoro, ‘CCNL’) applicable to the employment relationship.
Indeed, according to the judges of the Italian Court of Cassation, in the case of dismissal for justified objective reasons, and in the light of the new Article 2103 of the Italian Civil Code, the reference to the levels of classification described by a collective agreement is a relevant factor.
The Court specified that the CCNL “constitutes a factor that the judge will have to assess to ascertain whether or not the person who was dismissed was, in fact, able – on the basis of objectively verifiable evidence adduced by the employer and having regard to the specific training and entire professional experience of the employee – to carry out the duties of those who were hired ex novo, even if it is at the same or lower level”.
The Court of Cassation, finding no such assessment in the contested judgment on the merits, therefore upheld the employee’s appeal.
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In order no. 29337 of 23 October 2023, the Italian Court of Cassation ruled that dismissal for objective reason in the event of refusal to work part time (or vice versa full time) is not in itself unlawful, but involves a redetermination of the justified objective reason and the burden of proof placed on the employer.
The case arose from the dismissal for redundancy of an employee who had refused the company’s offer to change her employment relationship from part time to full time.
The employee challenged the dismissal on the basis that it was not grounded on a justified objective reason and was retaliatory. The Court rejected the worker’s application, holding that the company’s reasons for the dismissal were proven.
The second instance judges, repealing the first instance ruling, accepted the appeal filed by the employee, noting, in summary, that under Article 8, paragraph 1 of Italian Legislative Decree no. 81 of 2015, “a worker’s refusal to change their full-time employment relationship into a part-time relationship, or vice versa, does not constitute a justified reason for dismissal”. The judges based their decision on the findings that the prospect of a company reorganisation by hiring a new full-time accountant to cope with an increase in work activity was to be considered specious and that, in any case, the impossibility of the company distributing an overall set of clients between the two accountants or the difficulty of finding a part-time resource in the short term had not been proved, nor had the actual inevitability of employee’s dismissal as a necessary consequence of the alleged reorganisation.
The Court of Appeal also ruled that the dismissal, in addition to being unlawful, was also retaliatory, as it was directly linked to the employee’s refusal to change the relationship from part time to full time.
Consequently, on appeal, the dismissal was declared null and void, and the company was ordered to reinstate the employee and to pay an indemnity commensurate with the last salary used as a reference for the calculation of the severance indemnity from the dismissal to the actual reinstatement, as well as the payment of social security and welfare contributions.
The company appealed against this judgment to the Italian Court of Cassation.
The Italian Court of Cassation – in repealing the ruling on the merits – specified that, in the case in question, for the purposes of justified objective reason (giustificato motivo oggettivo, ‘GMO’), the employer must prove the following:
The refusal to change the part-time employment relationship, as stated, becomes, therefore, as specified by the Court, “a component of the greater burden of proof on the employer, which includes the financial reasons which make it impossible to continue to use part-time work, and the refused full time offer”.
On the basis of these principles, the Italian Court of Cassation has, therefore, specified that it is necessary to prove not only the validity of the reasons given for the change of working hours, but also the impossibility of the employee working at a different time, as a component/constituent element of the justified objective reason, without prejudice to the fact that the appropriateness and expediency of the business decision cannot be challenged, in accordance with the provisions of Article 41 of the Italian Constitution.
The Italian Court of Cassation also ruled that, for a retaliatory dismissal, for the dismissal to be declared null and void, it is necessary that the employer’s retaliatory intent was the exclusive determining factor, also taking into consideration other relevant facts for the purposes of establishing just cause or a justified reason for termination, with the burden of proof falling on the employee.
As the decision of the lower court was not consistent with these principles, the judges of the Italian Court of Cassation accepted the appeal brought by the company, referring the case to the lower court sitting in a different composition.
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