ITALY Law and Practice Contributed by: Angelo Zambelli, Barbara Grasselli and Alberto Testi, Zambelli & Partners
(a) have executed the collective agreement (at any level) applied by the company; or (b) participated in the bargaining process con - cerning the collective agreement (at any level) applied by the company, even if they did not execute it. • The RSA is usually appointed by the territorial trade union associations (without a general election by the workers). • An RSU can be formed in plants with more than 15 employees. The members of such union organisa - tions are elected directly by the workers. In fact, such union organisations were introduced in order to allow the workers to choose their internal rep - resentatives within the works councils in a more democratic manner than the RSA. The key function of the RSA/RSU is to negotiate with the employers at the company level, while also being entitled to specific information/consultation rights (such as in the event of collective redundancy, trans - fer of business, etc). 6.3 Collective Bargaining Agreements Collective bargaining agreements in Italy primarily take place at two levels: at the industry/national level – the most important one – and the company or, sometimes (very rarely), territorial level. In Italy, for almost every industry sector there is a national collective bargaining agreement that regu - lates the individual employment relationship (eg, trial periods, notice periods in case of termination, leave of absence, working time, contractual levels, minimum salaries, annual leave, sickness leave, etc). Nevertheless, in principle – and with certain limitations by case law – the employer is free not to apply any NCBA to its employees or, in any case, to choose the NCBA to be applied (ie, it does not have to apply the NCBA of the specific sector in which the company operates). The collective bargaining agreements at the company level aim to provide more tailored provisions to suit the type of business and activities carried out by the rel - evant company. They therefore may delve into greater detail on certain aspects of the employment relation -
ship (eg, working time, company canteen, disciplinary measures, etc).
7. Termination 7.1 Grounds for Termination
Termination shall be communicated in writing and should contain the relevant reasons. Any termination delivered in the absence of such requirements is inef - fective. There are various procedures to be followed depend - ing on the type of termination, the size of the company and the date of hiring of the employee. • Disciplinary procedure: The employer must promptly provide the employee with a written description of the objectionable behaviour or conduct. The employee has the right to respond – orally or in writing – within five days (or a longer timeframe set out in the applicable NCBA) through a so-called justification letter. The employer can terminate the employment relationship following: (a) the employee’s failure to respond within the said five-day period (or longer timeframe set out in the applicable NCBA); or (b) immediately following the receipt of the justifi - cation letter. • Procedure for dismissal for objective reasons: The employer must communicate in advance its intention to proceed with individual dismissal to the Labour Office of the employee’s workplace, copying the involved employee and explaining the reasons for the termination. This procedure applies only to the dismissal of employees (not having the role of “ dirigenti ”) hired before 7 March 2015 and employed by companies with more than fifteen employees in a single business unit or more busi - ness units within the same municipality ( comune ) or again more than sixty employees across all Italian territory. Within seven days from the receipt of the above communication, the Labour Office summons the parties before the Conciliation Office for a meeting in which the parties will attempt to reach an agreement. The procedure will terminate not later than twenty days from the day on which the Labour Office sent the summons.
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