July 2015
A FURTHER SET OF NEW RULES CHANGING THE SHAPE
OF ITALIAN LABOUR LAW
On June 25, 2015 two further pieces of legislation enacting the significant labour law reform known as the “Jobs
Act” entered into force, and namely Legislative Decrees no. 80 and 81 (hereinafter the “Decrees”).
The main changes introduced by the Decrees concern the following areas:
 assignment of different duties and roles to an employee: greater flexibility is granted to employers, both
when acting unilaterally and in agreement with the employee;
 definition of new perimeters for employment and self-employment: with a clear favour towards
employment (which is currently being fostered by the Government through both incentives for the
permanent hiring and new, more flexible, rules on dismissals), the legislator reduces the room for selfemployment, including by cancelling to so-called project-work contract;
 reorganization of the law provisions governing the several employment types existing in our system: a new
unique source of rules is therefore now available;
 support to parenthood: new working time and leave of absence patterns are introduced to the benefit of
mothers and fathers.
Here below are some of the highlights of the new legislation.
THE ASSIGNMENT OF DIFFERENT DUTIES
Employers are now entitled to unilaterally change the employee’s duties, to the extent the new duties fall within the
same contractual level, as described in the applicable national collective agreement, and the same statutory
qualification1 of the duties last performed. So far, on the contrary, the unilateral assignment of different duties
was considered lawful only when the new duties were “equivalent” to the previous ones, i.e. allowed the employee
to continue to use the professional skills set and the specific competence acquired at the time of the change.
In a limited number of circumstances employers are also entitled to unilaterally assign lower duties to employees,
and namely:


1
in the presence of organizational changes also affecting the employee’s position;
in all the other cases which will be established by collective agreements (including at company-level).
By statutory qualification it is intended either “Dirigente”, “Quadro”, “Impiegato” or “Operaio”.
The lower duties must however correspond to the contractual level immediately below the previous one and to
the previous statutory qualification, and the employee is entitled to maintain the previous salary. Employers
must also provide adequate training on the newly assigned duties, although failure to comply with such obligation
does not make the demotion null and void.
Finally, for the specific purpose of safeguarding occupation, allowing the employee to acquire new professional
skills, or improving the employee’s life conditions, employer and employee can agree, at any time but at specific
venues, on the assignment of lower duties entailing inferior statutory qualification and contractual level, as
well as a reduction in salary.
EMPLOYMENT VS SELF-EMPLOYMENT
With a view at broadening the scope of employment, effective January 1st, 2016 all the self-employment
collaborations where the individual provides exclusively personal work, on an on-going basis, and the
principal organizes the individual’s execution of work, including in terms of working time and place, shall be
considered employment, with application of the related rules.
Therefore, in all cases in which there is a certain level of coordination between the principal’s organization and the
self-employed individual’s services, the collaboration will be at risk of conversion into employment.
Such risk can be excluded only for self-employment collaborations entered into with categories of individuals
specifically identified by the legislator, including for instance Boards of Directors’ members, registered
professionals (such as lawyers, doctors, chartered accountants), specific categories identified by collective
agreements (e.g. call center operators).
In line with the above changes, effective June 25, 2015 the so-called project work, a self-employment
collaboration strictly related to a project, which was much used in recent years, has disappeared from our law
system, except for contracts which were already in force on that date.
Always in an attempt to encourage the use of employment, the Decrees grants a social security, insurance and tax
obligations “amnesty” to employers who, starting from January 1st, 2016, hire on a permanent basis individuals
who were previously self-employed, provided that certain conditions are met.
THE REORGANIZATION OF EMPLOYMENT CONTRACTS
Legislative Decree no. 81/2015 reorganizes the law provisions governing the several types of employment
contracts existing in our system, so that it becomes the sole source of reference for their discipline.
In doing that, the Decree confirms, among others, the rules on the liberalization of fixed-term employment and staff
leasing, as introduced in our system at the beginning of 2014. Such contracts can therefore be freely used, without
the need to justify their use on the basis of specific technical, organizational, production or replacement-related
reasons, as it was in the past.
In this connection the legislator points out that if fixed-term agreements exceed 20% of the permanent headcount in
force at the beginning of the year in which the hiring occurs (or the different maximum threshold established by
collective agreements, also at company-level), the employer shall be sanctioned with an administrative fine only,
and the conversion into open-term employment will be excluded.
More flexibility is granted also to part-time contracts and to the conversion of full-time into part-time and vice
versa.
2
SUPPORT TO PARENTHOOD
Finally, Decree no. 80/2015 introduces on an experimental basis for 2015 new measures to support the parenthood
of employees and self-employed people, in particular facilitating the use of leaves of absence for both mothers and
fathers and encouraging teleworking.
*****
3
The Labour and Employment department of Legance is available to provide any clarifications, also in respect of
any specific situation which may be of interest for you.
For further information:
ALBERTO MAGGI
TOMMASO LI BASSI
Tel. +39 02.89.63.071
Tel. +39 02.89.63.071
[email protected]
[email protected]
SILVIA TOZZOLI
ELENA RYOLO
Tel. +39 02.89.63.071
Tel. +39 02.89.63.071
[email protected]
[email protected]
or Your direct contact at Legance.
THE FIRM
Legance is an independent Italian law firm with expert, active and result-oriented lawyers, with a strong team spirit that has permitted a flexible and incisive
organisational model that, through departments active in all practice areas of business law, offers the right balance between the specialist and the lawyer as a
global consultant. Legance comprises over 190 lawyers, working in its Milan, Rome and London offices, and has a diverse and extensive practice covering the
following areas: M&A and Corporate; Banking; Project Financing; Debt Capital Markets; Equity Capital Markets; Financial Intermediaries Regulation;
Investment Funds; Litigation and Arbitration; Restructuring and Insolvency; Eu, Antitrust and Regulation; Labour and Employment; Tax; Administrative Law;
Real Estate; Energy, Gas and Natural Resources; Compliance; Shipping, Aviation and Transportation Law; Intellectual Property; TMT (Technology, Media,
Telecommunications); Environmental Law; Insurance; Law & Technology; Food Law. For more information, please visit our website: www.legance.it.
DISCLAIMER
The only purpose of this Newsletter is to provide general information. It is not a legal opinion nor should it be relied upon as a substitute for legal advice.
INFORMATION PURSUANT
TO ARTICLE 13 OF LEGISLATIVE DECREE NO. 196/2003 (Data Protection Code)
This Newsletter is being sent exclusively to persons who have freely provided their personal data in the course of professional relations, meetings, seminars,
workshops or similar events. These personal data shall be processed on paper or electronically for purposes which are strictly related to the existing
professional relations, or for information and divulgation reasons, but are not communicated to third parties, unless such communication is imposed by law or
strictly necessary to carry out the professional relation. Data controller is Legance – Avvocati Associati, with offices in Rome, Via di San Nicola da Tolentino
n. 67, 00187, in Milan, Via Dante n. 7, 20123, in London in Aldermary House, 10-15 Queen Street, EC4N 1TX. Data processing is carried out at Legance’s
offices and is dealt with exclusively by Legance employees, collaborators, associates or partners appointed as data processors, or by assignees in charge of
occasional maintenance works. In the event you have received this newsletter by mistake, or if you do not wish to receive such communications in the future,
you may request that no further communication is sent to you, sending an email to [email protected]. In any event, you are entitled to obtain at any
time confirmation of the existence of your data and be informed about their contents and origin, as well as to check their correctness, or to ask that they are
supplemented, updated or amended. You are also entitled to ask for cancellation, transformation into anonymous form or block of data processed in violation
of the law, as well as to object - for legitimate reasons - to your data processing. All the above requests must be forwarded by fax to Legance – Avvocati
Associati, on no. +39 06 93 18 27 403.