With the implementing decree of the Jobs act, approved by the Council of Ministers on 11 June and operational since yesterday, the Government has rearranged the types of existing employment contracts. The new regulation introduces some significant innovations in terms of hiring, but also leaves room for numerous uncertainties. The question that all companies ask themselves is: What changes with the latest implementing decrees? What types of contracts will be available for new hires? What changes for existing contracts? After explaining what changes for fixed-term and open-ended subordinated contracts let's now move on to delving into the thorny issue of collaborations.
CO.CO.PRO
Il legislative decree provides that "Starting from 1 January 2016, the discipline of the subordinate employment relationship also applies to collaboration relationships that take the form of exclusively personal, continuous work services, of repetitive content and whose execution methods are organized by the client also with reference to the times and place of work". Starting from the entry into force of the legislative decree approved by the Ministerial Decree of 11 June it will no longer be possible to activate a co.co.pro contract, but those already in place will be able to reach regular deadlines.
Starting from 1 January 2016 the co.co.pro contracts which present the three typical characteristics of the subordinate employment relationship personal exclusivity, continuity and heter-organization (ie the organization of places and working hours by the employer) will be transformed into employment contracts. However, the collaborations remain subject to these provisions:
- object of collective agreements;
- carried out by registered professionals;
- in favor of amateur sports associations and clubs associated with federations and bodies recognized by CONI;
- of the members of the administrative and control bodies of the companies and by the members of colleges and commissions.
Employers who between the day of entry into force of the legislative decrees and 1 January 2016 will transform a continuous and continuous collaboration contract, even on a project basis or with a VAT number, into a permanent subordinate contract will benefit from the extinction of administrative, contributory and tax offences connected to the incorrect use of the collaboration, except for any offenses ascertained before hiring. To benefit from this amnesty, however, it is necessary for the worker to put in writing that he renounces any claims for the previous employment relationship while the employer cannot fire the employee for 12 months except for justified subjective reasons.
“When an employer – explains the lawyer Giuseppe Cucurachi – tells the employee when to work and where to work, the employee inevitably no longer finds himself coordinating his activity. If there is someone who organizes my work and I am subject to limits, in practice I am an employee. January 2016, XNUMX is the turning point for collaborations in which there is heter-organization, but it is inevitable that between now and then there may be a correction of the shot for those who want to continue those collaborations”.
CO.CO.CO
The new discipline that rearranges employment contracts however, it leaves the coordinated and continuous collaboration alive in its genuine form, the old co.co.co to be clear. For a self-employed worker there is therefore the possibility of starting a continuous and coordinated collaboration whose purpose is not the realization of a project (otherwise it would be a co.co.pro.), but the provision of a service to the company in time and places decided by the worker.
Attorney Cucurachi clarifies the profile of the collaboration still in force: “There will no longer be a need for a project, there will no longer be a need for a deadline, this is not trivial. The fact that there should be a final result required us to go and identify a time horizon which is obviously very complicated to define. All this fails, simplifying the client's life from this point of view, because there is no need to identify a project, but there is not even a term for the relationship to indicate. An important simplification element”.
In conclusion, therefore, the novelties for co.co.pro are essentially three:
– starting from the entry into force of the implementing decrees, co.co.pro contracts will no longer be usable for new hires. Instead, the co.co.co remain in their genuine form;
– starting from 2016 January XNUMX, contracts that present the three characteristics of subordinate work (exclusivity, heter-organization and continuity) will be subject to the discipline of subordinate work;
– in the transitional period from the entry into force of the new regulations until 31 December, the employer can transform the co.co.pro into employment contracts and enjoy the amnesty on previous offences.
