When we read of dismissal cases via WhatsApp we tend to feel indignation. Yes, because for the interruption of a professional relationship a minimum of delicacy and responsibility is expected from both sides. Two precautions that, to mention only the last case, the employees of the company did not receive Caterpillar at Jesi.
Thus, the Ministry of Labor is working to prevent this scenario from happening again. In the draft of the decree on relocations, in fact, the Minister of Labor Andrea Orlando intends by law to increase the social responsibility of companies that are forced to (or decide to) close their doors.
Understandably, this is not a measure that affects all companies, as explained by the minister himself in the context of the meeting with trade unions and workers of Saga Coffee, but “there is a will to counteract the companies that carry out activities of an exclusively speculative nature, impoverishing an industrial heritage that belongs to the whole country “.
In short, the aim is to make the impact of closures and relocations less burdensome on the social fabric. Not only on the workers directly involved, but also on the related activities that a large company feeds and supports in a specific territory. The bill will thus require companies to take responsibility for the “destiny of workers by activating active policies, enabling them to choose the best social safety nets, and enabling the territories to seek out other investors”.
The latest draft of the decree sees this turning point apply only to larger companies, that is, those that in the year preceding closure, had at least 250 employees, but also in the case of “mass” layoffs, involving more than 50 resources .
How the dismissal should be communicated
According to the measure, a hypothetical closure must be communicated in writing, with an advance of at least ninety days, to the main local and national institutions, including company and territorial unions.
Therefore, a ban on the hypothesis of a dismissal via WhatsApp at the last minute: even the workers would receive news in good time to, at least, cushion the blow both from a practical and a psychological point of view. A rule that will invalidate not only collective redundancies, but also those “for just cause”, communicated after this time window.
Companies will also have to detail the measures they intend to implement to safeguard employment levels, exit incentives and the possible intention – and with what methods – to sell all or a part, technically, of the company to a cooperative formed by workers.
The decree also provides for the involvement of the resources concerned in the Employability Guarantee Program (GOL).
The penalties provided
They are, as often happens in our country, the crux of the matter. It is not enough to have a law to make people respect it, as we have explained to you in this article regarding the possibility that a merchant does not have the POS.
Some parties, such as PD and M5S, are calling for the tightening of the sanctions already provided for by law 92/2012, which concern those companies that do not respect the guarantees for workers. The Lega, nor Confindustria, which interprets the measure as punitive, do not agree on this point.
The fact is that the figure which companies should bear is not yet explicit in the draft of the decree and will have to be discussed in the course of one of the future councils of ministers.
The reactions of politics
They weren’t long in coming. The former Prime Minister Conte himself called for an intervention by the Government to limit the effects due not only to relocations, but also to layoffs and insecurity. The PD coherently supports the measure and its secretary, Enrico Letta, has asked that the timing of the decree be short.
On the other hand, Giancarlo Giorgetti (Lega), Minister of Economic Development, is skeptical, according to whom a tightening of sanctions for companies that relocate that does not follow the procedures provided for by law, would not be appropriate.
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