Even in times of crisis and unemployment, our labor market shows its vitality. In Lombardy, from 2009 to 2012, goodwill always exceeded 1.720.000 thousand units, while terminations reached a peak of 1.905.000 in 2011. In the second quarter of 2013, 413.127 new hires corresponded to 443.418 terminations with a negative balance equal to 30.291 units. But the current trend is to find alternatives to permanent contracts. Today, employers favor fixed-term contracts, especially after the constraints introduced by the "Fornero law" in June 2012 for professional collaboration contracts.
It being understood that in cases of discrimination or retaliation the dismissal is in any case null for any type of company, with article 18 a fixed-term employment entails fewer risks for the company because in the event of termination of the individual relationship the burdens are reasonably foreseeable. Article 18 paradoxically increases precariousness because it hinders the diffusion of open-ended employment contracts which from 2009 to today in the province of Milan represent on average only 17% of the total start-ups and increasingly concern unskilled tertiary companies average life not exceeding 24 months.
Can the "precariousness rate" be realistically reduced even in a difficult context such as the current one? Actually already in 1984 the CNEL, starting from contradictions and inconsistencies (from the outset article 18 applied only to a part of the workers) found in the labor legislation on individual dismissals, had proposed to offer some solutions starting from the consideration that a restrictive regulation of dismissals, beyond a certain limit, gave normative substance to the conception of the workplace as an object of a right of belonging of the worker.
However, according to the CNEL, "it is probable that the job protection policy as such, regardless of the company's organizational and market needs, is destined to be replaced by a more flexible and global job protection policy, coordinated with a labor mobility policy. The solution offered is very clear: “the unconditional obligation of reinstatement in the workplace should be limited to cases of dismissal that is radically void due to formal defects or for the unlawfulness of the reason (discriminatory, due to marriage or retaliation).
In the other cases, the verification of the lack of justified reason or just cause should not lead to the reinstatement order, but an alternative sentencing device which leaves the employer the choice between the re-employment of the worker within a very short term or the payment of a penalty by way of compensation for damages” to dissuade companies from firing unless the continuation of the employment relationship is incompatible. These conclusions, which were part of a larger document regarding the revision of the legislation on the employment relationship, were approved on 4 June 1985 with only Confindustria voting against, which paradoxically motivated the dissent precisely on the issue of dismissals.
The heads of delegation of CGIL, CISL and UIL at the CNEL assembly were Luciano Lama, Franco Marini and Giorgio Benvenuto. The CNEL has recently started to disappear without great regrets. Let us at least give him the honors of war for his intuitions on such a lacerating subject as article 18. It is said that to get out of sterile ideological conflicts a new work culture is needed, more far-reaching planning in a European dimension which treasuring the positive experiences of other big countries. It's a good idea, now let's put it into practice.
