The recent sentence of the Cassation of 23 January puts a firm point on a phenomenon of "anomalous" absenteeism that occurs in public services and in the production system, particularly in the southern regions, at each electoral round at a national, regional or local level.
On the basis of current legislation, in each electoral section a party, a list of candidates or a candidate can appoint, with a public deed, two of their list representatives, one standing and the other alternate, to assist in the voting and counting operations of the cards; the substitute is authorized to perform his duties only in cases of temporary absence of the effective representative.
List representatives, if employed, have the right to one day off paid by the employer for each day in which they are involved in electoral operations (from Saturday with the setting up of the polling station to Monday of the ballot): the so-called three days of additional electoral holidays.
At the time of organized mass parties, list representatives were functionaries or party activists, so a few appointees, mostly from the DC and the PCI, were sufficient to preside over all the electoral sections present in the same building.
With the historic parties gone, the proliferation of more or less liquid parties, of small parties and personal lists has distorted the rationale on the compensatory rest paid to the list representative who, similarly to the other members of the polling station, should be committed to his presence in all electoral days.
Today the role of the list representative, and of his deputy, has in fact become an opportunity to allow a vast number of friends, neighbors and clientes to enjoy three additional days of paid holidays: each list, even if marginal, present in a section can be represented by two of its trustees, the regular and the alternate, provided they are public or private employees, and the days of paid leave are paid by the employer: in short, a real exchange vote.
Otherwise, absenteeism due to electoral permits could not be explained, which reaches very high levels in the days following election Sundays, both among workers in public services (hospitals, transport, in some cases even prisons, . . .) and among workers in the industry, with an inevitable negative consequence on GDP.
In fact, to obtain the "benefit" it is not necessary to be constantly present during the electoral operations (have you ever seen small groups of list representatives crowding the polling station while you go to vote?), but it is enough to show up a little before the end of the counting of the ballots to have the certificate of attendance stamped by the polling station president on those days .
This is the case dealt with by the Cassation.
In the regional elections of Basilicata in April 2010, a Fiat worker in Melfi gave the company a certificate of participation in electoral operations as a list representative in order to use the paid leave. The certificate, duly authenticated, however proved to be perfect in form but false in substance, since, during the polling station activities, the worker was present at work in the factory.
The company, already penalized by the considerable decrease in production activity in the days of electoral operations precisely as a consequence of the multiple absences for the tasks of its employees (over four thousand list representatives) proceeded, faced with such a serious fact also for its penal relief, to the dismissal of the worker.
The Court of Appeal of Potenza annulled the dismissal and ordered the reinstatement pursuant to art. 18 of the Workers' Statute, deeming the behavior of the worker to be reprehensible but not such as to give rise to a just cause for withdrawal, reducing the absence to a simple unjustified absence due to the paid leave being improperly enjoyed, which can be punished at the limit with a disciplinary measure of fine or suspension.
The Supreme Court has now, after eight years, instead confirmed the dismissal, because "cheating" on the days of presence at the polling station as a list representative can configure the just cause for withdrawal.
In fact, the Supreme Court affirms that the behavior of the worker cannot be traced back to an unjustified absence but "the principle that the conscious use of a false certificate in order to be able to enjoy, moreover in a moment of deduced greater working need for the company, a rest not due, can give concrete form to the concept of just cause".
This sentence will be able to temper the "pandemic" of electoral permits of list representatives at least, for example, in companies in the automotive area of the Melfi district, where in recent electoral rounds there have been peaks of absenteeism for electoral reasons of over seventy for hundred?
