To make the new contract with increasing protections, the heart of the Jobs act, attractive, the Government aims to cancel article 18 of the Workers' Statute, which requires the reinstatement of those who are fired without just cause. In turn, to make this step digestible for the left Pd and the unions, the Executive plans to introduce a new criterion: reduce incentives to companies that lay off. This would be a different way to defend workers, no longer a real legal protection in favor of employees, but only a tax disincentive for businesses. The news was anticipated today by The Corriere della Sera.
The tax incentives in question are those that the government intends to introduce on its own on the contract with increasing protections, to make this form of relationship more convenient and therefore more widespread than fixed-term contracts. It would be about discounts on labor costs, compared to the fixed-term contract, which companies should repay to the State in the event that they decide to fire the employee in the first phase of the contract with increasing protections. It will be crucial to understand the temporal extension of this clause (we are talking about three years).
I fixed-term contracts, however, should survive only for jobs that are actually limited in time, such as seasonal jobs, while co.co.pro and other forms of precariousness should disappear.
As for theArticle 18, its catchment area will shrink year after year, because the new contract with increasing protections will apply only to recruitments subsequent to the entry into force of the law. The new system provides that companies have the obligation to reintegrate workers only in the event of discriminatory layoffs (religion, race, politics, sexual orientation, union membership, and more), but in labor lawsuits the burden of proof will be borne by the employee. In all other cases, the company will be able to fire freely upon payment of an economic indemnity that increases in relation to the years of service (the hypotheses vary from one to three months' salary per year of work).
At the political level, the controversies focus on one point in particular: what will happen after the famous three years indirect protection of workers through the tax incentive? Unions and the left Pd want article 18 to come back into force. Ncd asks that only the compensation that increases over time remain at stake. The rest of the Democratic Party is divided between the road indicated by the right and the idea of reintroducing article 18 only after a certain number of years of service (6-12-15) or a certain age of the worker.
