FLEXICURITY ITALY (OULU 2007)

Transcription

1 FLEXICURITY ITALY (OULU 2007) Gabriele Grosso (Università di Bologna) Andreas Michael (Università di Firenze)

2 INDEX I) INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC...3 II) FLEXIBILITY IN ITALY: CURRENT LEGAL SITUATION...4 EXTERNAL NUMERICAL FLEXIBILITY:...5 INTERNAL NUMERICAL FLEXIBILITY...7 FUNCTIONAL FLEXIBILITY....9 WAGE FLEXIBILITY...10 EXTERNALIZATION FLEXIBILITY...10 III) THE SECURITY IN ITALY, CURRENT LEGAL SITUATION WAGES GUARANTEE FUND (Cassa integrazione guadagni, CIG)...11 COLLECTIVE DISMISSAL/REDUNDANCY...13 NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS FOR WORKER S SECURITY PREGNANCY AND MATERNITY...16 ILLNESS...17 VOCATIONAL TRAINING...17 COMBINED TRAINING AND WORK...18 LIFELONG EDUCATION...18 IV) EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE V) ACTUAL DISCUSSION VI) PROS, CONS AND RECCOMANDATIONS....20

3 I) INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC. This paper is about flexicurity in Italy, in other words it s about the Italian labour market and its characteristics concerning the different need of flexibility, rigidity and security. In the past, rigidity and flexibility were seen as two different approach to the labour market and, especially in Italy, the former was considered as a synonym of protection for workers, the latter was instead considered as an advantage for enterprises and a detriment for the employee. The flexicurity model tries to reach the flexibility of the labour market with the safeguard of the interests of workers, guaranteed by an high level of security; the flexicurity model par excellence is the Denmark one, but other kinds of labour markets inspired by the flexicurity idea exist in other countries of the European Uonion. Italian labour market does not precisely enactsthe Italian experience we can state that there is not a labour market that enacts the flexicurity model but there are some legal instruments that are expression of flexibility, others of rigidity and, finally, a kind of social security. In recent years Italian labour market has evolved towards a more flexible system, but the main problem is that the means of flexibility and the means of security are not connected each other, they are not thought for a joined action in the labour market, that s why we can say that Italy does not have a proper model of flexicurity. It follows that we cannot write about the model of flexicurity in Italy so this paper has to deal, first, with the meanings of flexibility and then, with the security ones, treated in a separate way. Flexicurity is a word made by a mix of the two words flexibility and security; for its definition we can quote at least two different approaches: In a neo liberal idea, and that s the one more common nowadays, flexicurity is a policy strategy that attempts, synchronically and in a deliberate way, to enhance the flexibility of labour markets, work organization and labour relations on the one hand, and to enhance security employment security and social security notably for a weak groups in and outside the labour market on the other hand Against this idea there is the trade-unionist view at flexicurity that points out how the flexibilization of employment relations can be hardly compensated by social security benefits, and giving up labour rights for social advantages is not appropriated; so they propose another definition of flexicurity, as a social protection for flexible work forces as an alternative to pure flexibilization. The neoliberal idea of flexicurity focueses on the cost of labour and analyzes the issue from an economic point of view, while the trade-unions are worried to guarantee the rights of each individual workers.

4 There are various types of flexibility and security, here there are the usual classifications: Numerical flexibility: It is divided in internal (and this one is called also temporal flexibility) and external, the former is the easiness to change working hours of the employees with no change of their number, the second one is the easiness of hiring and firing and it involves a mobility of workers between employers (external job turnover) Numerical flexibility means that enterprises can easily allocate the right number of workers, and to vary it, in according with the necessity of the productions. Functional flexibility: It is the easiness to charge employees with different work, moving them trough different tasks, department and type of work. Wage flexibility: easiness to adjust the wage to individual performance. Externalization flexibility: easiness to hire workers without employment but commercial contracts. On the other hand the security types are: Job security: protection of employees against dismissals and major changes of working conditions; Employment security: It is the certainty of remaining at work, not necessary with the same employer. So it is important the availability of equivalent vacant jobs, (life-long training, facilities for work-work transitions). Income (social) security: income protection if paid work ceases. Combination security: compatibility of work with other activities. II) FLEXIBILITY IN ITALY: CURRENT LEGAL SITUATION Italy has always been a country characterized by an important role of trade unions and a high level of sensitivity of judges to the protection of workers.

5 Traditionally, the Italian labour market was a rigid market, the employees were, surrounded by a large number of guarantees and the contractual relationship between employer and employees was based on one type of contract: the open-ended full time work contract. The result was that employees usually spent all their working-life in the same enterprise. A high protection of employees involves a high cost for enterprises and nowadays the effects of similar policies could be: - High protection for insiders but no protection for outsiders, because the reverse of the medal of a strong protection against dismissals, tends to be a disincentive to hiring. - The transfer of productions from Italy to other countries with low labour cost: in an era of globalisation, it is impossible not to consider the challenge that developing countries are engaging with Western countries, in particular in the field of low cost manpower. The necessity to give up to some guarantees of employees in order to increase the occupation rate started after the petrol shock of 1973, and since 1976 the legislator enforced some measures aim to attenuate the rigidity of the labour market. In the 80s a structural crisis of the economic system was in act and the beginning of the globalization process seemed to prove that flexibility was the necessary future of labour law. Thus, during the 90s new forms of employment contracts and atypical work developed, but the first real change in the Italian labour market was in 1997 with the law n. 196 (so called Treu s law, after the name of the Labour Minister) which made temporary work and temporary employment agencies legal. However, a more organic attempt of regulation of all the form of atypical works was not made until 2003 with the so called Biagi s law (legislative decree n 276/2003). This law is very important for the present paper as this is the first piece of legislation following directly from the 2001 White paper on labour market, where the Government very clearly stressed the need for Italian labour market to become more flexible. This process towards flexibility is causing a big debate between the political parties, the social partners, and, of course, the workers. The real issue is not flexibility or rigidity but which grade of flexibility is the right balance between the interests of firms and those of workers. Below we will show in which way the Italian labour market is flexible. EXTERNAL NUMERICAL FLEXIBILITY: Employers can hire workers with different kind of contracts and each of them involves different powers of him regarding the firing.

6 The basic employment contract is, or actually was, the one with full-time hours of work and with undefined duration. In this case the employer can dismiss the employee essentially on the ground of a justified reason ( Law n 604/1966) with the respect of the notice period, or on the ground of just cause (art civil code) without any notice period. Just cause requires a very grave conduct which constitutes a serious and irremediable breach of the contract of employment (this is not a definition by the law but an abstract from the case law), instead a justified reason is a notable failure of the employee to fulfil contractual obligations or reasons inherent in the production process, the organization of work or the smooth running of the undertaking. For what concern the issue of flexibility, is relevant the notion of objective justified reason. The definition by the law, where it admits dismissal for reasons inherent with the production process and so on, seems to take into consideration the need of flexibility of enterprises. But the real practice shows how judges require an analytic evidence of such necessity and, if in doubt, are inclined to safeguard the employees. The Biagi s reform intervened regulating other form of more flexible work (some of them already regulated and others not). Beginning with the fixed-term contract, this is regulated by the Legislative Decree n 368/2001; here the termination is automatic at the end of the period (only a just cause allows an earlier termination of the contract). Before this act, enterprises could hire workers with a fixed-term contract only if some determined causes were matched, while now it is still necessary an objective reason but instead of determined causes there is a general clause that refers to technical, organizational, productive or substitutive reasons. Therefore it is nowadays very easy to hire with such contract, which is regarded as the less dangerous form of flexible employment also by trade unions. This kind of contract is both flexible and rigid: it is flexible because at the end of the period it is sure that the employer can be dismissed, but on the other hand, before the term is expired it is not possible to fire, except for a just cause, as already said. Moreover in Italy is possible, since the Biagi s reform, to conclude an on call labour agreement. This type of contract provides that the employer can decide if and when to call the employee to work, and the latter is bounded to remain at the disposal of the former (if the parties agreed that the employee cannot refuse the call he will earn an extra amount for this obligation). Enterprises can use this kind of contract only if are matched the specific causes set up by collective agreements.

7 Another form of job regulated by the Biagi s reform is the job on project ; this is a case of selfemployment that before the reform was called co-ordinated and continuative collaboration, according to article 409 n 3 of the civil procedure code. This type of collaboration now has to be connected to a specific project or program and the contract must provide for a fixed-term, also derived per relationem with the fulfilment of the project or program. The right of withdrawal before the term is possible only on the ground of just cause, but a clause of the contract can provide for the right of withdrawal without any justifiable reason with just a duty of respect a period of notice. Actually, because of the different power of the two parts of the contract, this is an important point that shows the favour to enterprises of this law, in fact usually if the employer inserts such clause in the contract the worker has not the power to negotiate on it. This type of contract is really affordable for enterprises because the worker is not an employee but a self-employment and it was very common also before the Biagi s reform; one of the aim of the Law n 276/2003 was, in fact, to rule this type of works and set out a kind of safeguard for such workers. The law tries to safeguard workers ruling that all the collaborations have to be related to a project or program, and this project or program will be the limit for the independence of the worker; he remains a self-employment but has to undertake the obligation in according with the project or program. In this way the law try to avoid that the limit to such independence will be the employer s managerial authority, transforming de facto the self-employment relation in an employment relationship without the usual safeguard for the employees. The problem is that the concept of project and program are so wide that is possible to relate to them almost every activity. This type of contract involves also some pure economical advantages for employers; first of all the social security contributions is the 19% on the pay, while the one for employees is the 32.7%, moreover these workers don t have protection in case of illnes, they don t have neither the right for annual holiday nor for TFR (end of service allowance). INTERNAL NUMERICAL FLEXIBILITY Enterprises can reach the internal numerical flexibility with different means. First of all it is possible use the part-time work; it was regulated by the Legislative Decree n 61/2000 but it was not a mean of flexibility because the law was oriented to protect the need of fair income of employees; now the Biagi s reform modified the law in a flexible way.

8 According to the current law three different typologies of part time work exist; horizontal part-time (daily working hours less than the normal one), vertical part-time (working only in certain days, weeks or months of the year), mixed part-time (it is a mix of the other two). In the contract the distribution of the working hours in the day, in the week and in the month or year must be indicated, and this is a norm that makes the part-time work rigid; however two instruments of flexibility exist. Firstly, in the horizontal part-time work it is possible to resort to extra hours (in the cases and within the maximal laid down by collective agreements, which can also provide that the worker cannot refuse such a request). Secondly, it is possible to insert in the contract two clauses: a clause of flexibility, in force of which the employer has the right to vary unilaterally the distribution of the working hours, with at least two days of period of notice, or a clause of elasticity, in force of which the employer has the right to ask extra hours (this clause is necessary in case of vertical or mixed part-time work in order to confer this kind of right to the employer). These clauses can be stipulated only in the cases and in the ways provided by collective agreements, but in the absence of such provisions they can be stipulated directly in the individual agreement by the parties. A second way for enterprises to reach the internal numerical flexibility is offered by the discipline of the working hours (legislative decree n 66/2003); here is given a very important role to the collective agreements. The normal working hours is fixed by the law in 40 hours per week, but the collective bargaining (of any level, it is enough that the parties are trade unions comparatively more representative of workers) can establish an inferior duration. They cannot provide for a longer time, but it is possible to provide for multiperiodal hours, in this case the normal hour of 40 hours is respected also if the 40 hours per week are just the average of working time calculated in a longer period, which could be even a year. It is important to underline that if the limit is not surpass, all the performances of workers cannot be qualified as overtime and so employees have not the right to extra pay. There is also a maximum weekly working hour, that is fixed in 48 hours; this limit cannot be surpassed. But 48 hours are calculated as an average on a period not longer than 4 months (moreover the collective bargaining can elevate this limit to 6 or 12 months in according with objective reasons, technical or inherent to the organization of work). On fact, every day the working time cannot be longer of 13 hours, this limit derives indirectly by the norm that gives a right to 11 hours of consecutive break every 24 hours (but also this norm can be derogate by the collective bargaining).

9 The possibility for the employed to ask for overtime is subordinate to an agreement with the employee and for a period not longer than 250 hours per year; but, again, this two requisites (the consent and the limit of 250 hours) are applicable in absence of a collective agreement on the topic. FUNCTIONAL FLEXIBILITY. From the point of view of enterprises could be a good advantage can charge employees with different work or change easily their location, in according with the changing of the necessity of production. The fewer is the obstacles to this, the faster and cheaper is the response of the enterprise to the changing of needs. Thus it is relevant the discipline of the ius variandi of the employer and the discipline about the transfer of workers. Beginning with the ius variandi, it is the right of the employer to change the employee's job in line with the enterprise's changing organizational requirements; the source is article n 2103 of the Civil code, as modified by the worker s statute (law n 300/1970). Article 2103 places the principle of job equivalence, which is respected if the new job assigned to the worker has a content similar to the original job and requires skills and abilities which match those acquired by the worker. Another limit is that no reduction in pay must be involved; finally, in case of assignment to a jobs of a higher grade, employee is entitled to the pay corresponding to the work done and, after remaining in those jobs for a certain period of time which is fixed by collective agreement but not longer than three months (six months for professional and managerial staff ), to permanent recognition of the corresponding higher job classification level, unless the assignment has been made to replace an absent employee who has the right to return to his or her old job. On principle these limits cannot be modified in any individual or collective agreements (every contrary agreement is void). Anyway there are some cases in which it is possible to derogate to these rule; case-law recognizes the possibility for the employee to accept a downgrading or a diminution of pay if it happens in order to protect a prevalent interest of the worker (now this exception is placed in the Act n 68/1999), moreover in according with Act n 223/1991 is possible to conclude job-security agreements. These are company agreements that provides for a reduction of working hours and pay of all the company s employees, in order to avoid a collective dismissal because of labour surplus or in order to permit the hiring of new personnel.

10 Coming to the issue of the transfer of workers, in according with article 2103 civil code, an employee may not be transferred from one work/production unit to another except for proven technical, organizational and production reasons. WAGE FLEXIBILITY. Wage flexibility is a good mean to encourage employees to give their best, the problem is whether and in which form is possible to differentiate the wage in single items. In Italy both the collective and the individual agreement can provide for fringe benefits or in general for a part of the wage related to the individual performance. Relevant to this issue is article 36 of the Constitution that provides for a minimum wage for employees, related with the quality and quantity of their labour but also sufficient to guarantee a free and decent life to the worker and to his family; in practice the minimum wage is the basic wage set out by the collective bargaining, for each type of labour. Once that this minimum is guaranteed employers can promise other benefits also related with individual skills. The debate whether a principle of equal treatment of employees within the same enterprises exist is oriented for a negative solution, thus employers can recognize individual benefits, except if the reasons of this disparity are the ones forbidden by non-discrimination clauses set out by the law (e.g. reasons of sex, race, religion etc ). EXTERNALIZATION FLEXIBILITY. In Italy the employment agency work was prohibited under article 1 Law n 1369/1960, only with the Law n 196/1997 the temporary employment agency work was regulated and permitted. Finally the legislative decree n 276/2003 has increased the cases in which is possible the temporary employment agency work and has legalized the labour-only subcontracting with indefinite duration (so called staffleasing). With this type of contract enterprises can make use of personnel who are not their employees; actually there are two different but linked contracts. There is an employment contract between the employee and an enterprise that will be the employer only in a formal way, then there is another contract between this enterprise and another, which need workers and which will utilize the personnel, whereby the former is obligated to give the personnel to the latter.

11 Enterprises can resort to the indeterminate employment agency work only if one of eight causes of admissibility, set out by the law, and one opened to the collective bargaining is matched. Instead, for the temporary employment agency work, it is admitted in case of technical, organizational, productive or substitutive reasons, even if referable to the ordinary activity of the user. It is provided the possibility for the collective bargaining to set out a limit to the use of this kind of work as a percentage of the global staff, but just for the temporary employment agency work. Anyway, in the silent of the law, probably the collective bargaining can set out this kind of limit also in case of indeterminate employment agency work. III) THE SECURITY IN ITALY, CURRENT LEGAL SITUATION. The Italian security system provides a series of instruments created, on the one hand, to ensure workers assistance during periods of crisis of the production (such as the CIG) and, on the other hand, to make easier the change of occupation and the promotion of socially useful activities (workfare politics) according to the social rights and the duties provided by the Constitution (artt.4 and 38). Some security instruments are besides provided to look for workers stability and health during distinctive periods of their life (for example, during pregnancy or illness) which make them particularly weak. WAGES GUARANTEE FUND (Cassa integrazione guadagni, CIG) In industry, the Fund operates through two forms of intervention (ordinary and special), governed by a series of laws of which the main ones are Law No of November 5, 1968, Law No. 164 of May 20, 1975, Law No. 675 of August 12, 1977 and more recently, Law No. 223 of July 23, Ordinary intervention: It had been thought to protect workers income during situations of market failure (due to exceptional impossibility or difficulty of exercising productive activities in the short period) in the industrial field. Payments under ordinary intervention are granted by the National Institute of Social Insurance (INPS) to workers who have been laid off or put on short-time working because of immediate

12 circumstances which cannot be blamed either on the employer or on the employees, or because of temporary market situations. The amount paid is up to 80 per cent of the lost pay. The maximum duration of this intervention is of three months, in special cases this period can be extended. Ordinary intervention is nowadays applicable in the construction and agricultural sectors. Special intervention: Payments under special intervention are granted by the Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance, on the advice of the Interministerial Industrial Policy Committee (CIPI), to workers who have been laid off because of company reorganization, restructuring or conversion, or a company's economic difficulties that are of particular social importance as regards local employment. It is granted only to companies with more than 15 workers and the procedure ends with a decree by the Ministry of Labour. Law provides a trade union information and consultation procedure as a prior condition for the admissibility of an employer's request for the Fund's intervention. Devised originally as a means of temporary income protection for employees, in the expectation that the company and its employees would soon resume normal activity, the Fund has gradually been extended even to cases in which there is no prospect of a return to the normal production and work pattern, so that it has in fact become a welfare instrument for the management of labour surpluses Job security agreement (contratto di solidarietà interna) Company agreement which, in order to avoid collective dismissals/redundancies or lay-offs because of a labour surplus/overstaffing, provides for a reduction in the working hours and pay of all the company's employees. The job-security agreement concluded to avoid staff cuts, known as a "defensive" agreement, attracts assistance from the Wages Guarantee Fund equal to 50 per cent. of the loss of pay, for a maximum period of 24 months. Law No. 236/1993 provided further incentives for the use of defensive job-security agreements as a means of dealing with labour surpluses, by increasing the assistance from the Wages Guarantee Fund to 75 per cent.

13 COLLECTIVE DISMISSAL/REDUNDANCY Unilateral termination of the employment relationship by the employer affecting a number of employees, in order to effect staff reduction/staff cuts. Following the denouncement by the European Court of Justice of Italy's failure to incorporate EC Directive No. 75/129 into national law, the Italian system was brought into line with the Community provisions by Law No. 223/1991, which regulated the matter legislatively for the first time. The collective dismissal is related with the special intervention of the Wages Guarantee Fund (CIGS), and takes the name of collocamento in mobilità (literally placement in mobility ), the collective redundancy does not depend on this intervention. Dismissal: Ruled by the art.4 l.223/1991, wich establishes that in case an enterprise admitted to the special intervention of the Wages Guarantee Fund (CIGS), in the course of performance of the program thinks not to be in a position to guaranteeing the reuse of all the suspended workers and not to be able to rerun to alternatives measures, must start the procedure of placement in mobility. That means that the employer must communicate his choice to the plant-level union structure (RSA) and to the external unions explaining the reasons that have brought about the labour surplus, the reasons why it is not judged possible to take alternative measures to the intended dismissals, the number and job classification levels of the surplus employees, the dates when the dismissals are to take place and any measures that are planned to mitigate the social consequences of the collective dismissal. The RSA and the unions may request, within 7 days of receiving this information, a joint examination procedure to examine the reasons for the labour surplus, the possibilities of utilizing the workforce (or part of it) in different ways, including job-security agreements, the flexible arrangement of working hours and, possibly, the downgrading of the surplus employees. This joint examination procedure must be completed within 45 days after the initial communication. If the parties have failed to reach an agreement, the next step is a conciliation phase conducted by the Labour Office, which may last for a maximum of 30 days. That s what in Italy we call procedimentalizzazione dei poteri dell imprenditore, expression that refers to the union control on the employer s freedom about dismissal.

14 Moreover, applying EC Directive 92/56, it had been provided the possibility of drafting some social plans to make easier workers requalification. At the end of the procedure the employer, observing the required period of notice and the selection criteria specified in the agreement with the unions or (if no agreement was reached) laid down in the Law (length of service, family commitments and technical, production and organizational requirements), notifies the employees in writing of their dismissal. The list of employees being dismissed must be sent to the Regional Labour Office for registration on the availability list, which brings them a number of financial and regulatory benefits such as entitlement to an availability allowance. Failure to follow the procedure properly is penalized by the obligation to reinstate the employees who have thus been dismissed unlawfully. If the infringement relates solely to the selection criteria applicable, the employer must reinstate the employees but is then able to proceed with the dismissals immediately, without needing to repeat the entire procedure, by applying the criteria correctly. Art.18 l. 300/1970 (the so called statuto dei lavoratori ) is applicable. The availability allowance is granted maximum for 12 months to workers who were employed at least for 12 months, of which at least 6 of effective job. Dismissed workers, who the availability allowance is corresponded, are registered on a special list, compiled by the Regional Labour Office ( availability list ). Every employer who is taking on new employees must reserve a 12 per cent. quota of the hirings for workers registered on this list The Law also imposes a number of obligations on registered workers: in particular, to accept any offer of employment where the work is occupationally equivalent to that done previously, to attend vocational training courses authorized by the Region and to do any socially useful work proposed to them. If they refuse to fulfil these obligations their name is removed from the list. Law No. 236/1993 also extended registration on the availability list to workers who have been dismissed from enterprises with fewer than 15 employees for a justifiable reason connected with the reduction or change of activity or work. These workers are not entitled to the availability allowance, but enjoy all the other benefits associated with registration (reserved quota for hirings, vocational training provision, etc.).

15 Redundancy: Ruled by article 24, law 223/1991concerns the case of the employer with more than 15 employees who, for reasons connected with a reduction or change in activity or work, intends to dismiss at least 5 employees over a period of 120 days, in the same enterprise or in different enterprises in the territory of the province. The procedural dispositions dictated for the placement in mobility of the workers are applied, consequently the employer must follow the same rules ex art. 4, l. 223/1991. There is also a financial burden associated with collective dismissal: the employer is required to pay to the INPS a sum equivalent to nine months' availability allowance for each employee dismissed, which is reduced to three months' allowance if an agreement was reached with the unions. Instruments of support and promotion of the employment. Job creation agreement ( contratto di solidarietà c.d.esterna ) Company agreement which, in order to permit the hiring of new personnel, provides for a reduction in the working hours and pay of all the company's employees. The employer is paid a contribution for each new employee hired and is also allowed to use recruitment by name. Socially useful work ( lavoro socialmente utile, LSU) Defined by Law No. 451 of 19 July 1994 as work performed by the long-term unemployed, individuals who are registered on the availability lists or workers receiving special-intervention payments from the Wages Guarantee Fund, for public authorities who submit a request for such work to be done. Workers who are required to perform socially useful work do not lose their availability allowance or payment from the Wages Guarantee Fund and may be paid, in addition to this, a sum for the days of work actually performed. Socially useful work includes activities in the sector of the national cultural heritage, environmental conservation, maintenance of public and private amenities, research, training and re-training and all others specified by Law No. 451/1994. Such work is necessarily temporary. Instruments of promotion of the entrepreneurial initiative

16 Law no. 215/1992 created a national fund for feminine enterprise development, in order to achieve equal treatment for men and women, as already established in law no.125/1991. This fund support enterprises managed by women and enterprises that promote entrepreneurial education or consulting services. NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS FOR WORKER S SECURITY. INAIL Istituto Nazionale Assicurazione Infortuni sul Lavoro (National Institute for Industrial Accident Insurance). State-run public body which administers the compulsory insurance against accidents at work/industrial accidents and occupational. INPS Istituto Nazionale per la Previdenza Sociale (National Institute of Social Insurance). Public body which administers the various forms of compulsory and optional insurance that make up the Italian system of social insurance, in particular the compulsory insurances for invalidity, old age and survivors, tuberculosis and involuntary unemployment. It performs other important functions in the "social welfare" field, notably administration of the Wages Guarantee Fund. The INPS comes under the Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance and operates through various committees. PREGNANCY AND MATERNITY A special regulation is provided to ensure a series of guarantees for female employees during pregnancy and the post-confinement period. From the beginning of pregnancy until one year after the child's birth, a woman may not be dismissed except in cases of serious misdemeanour, cessation of operation by the enterprise or the ending of the specific work for which she was hired. Furthermore, during the period of pregnancy and up to seven months after her confinement it is forbidden for the woman to be assigned to carrying or lifting weights or to dangerous, heavy or unhealthy tasks, and it is recognized that she has the right to absent herself from work during periods before and after her confinement.

17 Period of essential and optional suspension of the performance of work by a working mother, as laid down in Law No of December 30, 1971 (Maternity Protection Act). The rules governing the period of compulsory abstention from work (which carries entitlement to payments equal to 80 per cent. of pay) provide for a complete ban on working during the period beginning two months prior to the expected date of confinement and ending three months after the actual date of the confinement. The worker may also optionally abstain from work (on 30 per cent. of pay) for a further period of six months during the baby's first year of life and (unpaid) during any periods of illness of the child while it is under three years of age. The right to optional abstention from work was also later granted to the baby's father and to adoptive mothers by Law No. 903/1977 on equal treatment for men and women at work. ILLNESS Article 38 of the Constitution sanctions the right of workers to be provided with adequate means of subsistence in the event of illness. The relevant regulations are to be found in Article 2110 of the Civil Code, which recognizes the right of employees who are absent through illness to receive either a social insurance benefit, if provided for by law, or their pay or part of their pay, for a period of time and in an amount laid down by law, by collective bargaining, by custom or according to natural justice. VOCATIONAL TRAINING This subject, which is the responsibility of the Regions, has undergone a rapid change in meaning (as well as in name: in the past it was commonly known as addestramento professionale (on-the-job training); throughout the 1950s and 1960s it signified activities primarily aimed at young people, often parallel to secondary school education. With the second transfer of powers to the Regions (Presidential Decree No. 616/77), a wider definition evolved which now encompasses not only basic vocational training but also re-training, refresher courses and further training for workers at any stage of life. Vocational training is therefore perceived as a permanent public service, one of the many facets of lifelong education.

18 COMBINED TRAINING AND WORK Programmed combination of training and work, either in the form of sandwich courses (blocks of time devoted solely to work alternating with blocks of time devoted solely to study) or simultaneous (for instance, half a day of study and half a day of work). The most widespread forms of combined work and training include practical work experience (Article 15 of Law No. 845/78), apprenticeship (Law No. 25/55), work/training contracts (Law No. 863/84) and paid time off for study provided for by collective bargaining LIFELONG EDUCATION The expression "lifelong education" can be taken to cover all institutionalized strategies aimed at offering citizens recurrent opportunities for education, from youth to old age. The concept eliminates the usual structural division of people's lives into age and activity blocks (study at a certain age, work at another, and at a later age retirement from active employment). Its principle is rooted culturally in theories born of a climate of confidence in technological progress, which, it is believed, in freeing human energies, will allow a smooth redistribution of the residual work and a considerable broadening of the education opportunities for all citizens, regardless of age and of social and professional status. IV) EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE. Here is some empirical evidence about the situation of the Italian labour market and could be interesting to compare the statistics before the 2003 and after, namely what has changed after the Biagi s reform.

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20 V) ACTUAL DISCUSSION. In October 2006 an informal tripartite summit took place in Lathi, Finland. The European social partners met there to discuss the important topic of flexicurity, in order to update the debate on market labour and its growth according to the so-called Lisbon strategy. Employer representatives, trade unions and government ministers met to discuss the concept of flexicurity and it emerged that the main actors have different interpretations of what flexicurity means. In fact, we can distinguish the employer perspective, on the one hand, and the trade union perspective, one the other hand. Besides, inside the employer perspective, different positions are taken by the European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (UEAPME), which focus on the need of updating the concept of security, considered much more as employment security rather than job security (requiring more workers geographical and functional mobility). In contrast, the Industrial and Employers Confederation of Europe (UNICE) adopted a more moderate interpretation: flexicurity should be considered as the right mix of economic and social measures to foster job creation involving three integral factors: -flexible labour law (which does not mean unlimited deregulations) -fight to undeclared work -balance between active labour market and sound fiscal policies European Trade union Confederation (ETUC) perspective underlines that term flexicurity can t be considered as a synonym of precarious. A balance between job flexibility and workers fundamental rights is needed. Social dialogue, social and employment regulation and state responsibility for full employment must be attended in any case to ensure worker s dignity and security. The European Commission s communication on flexicurity is due to be presented at the spring European Council in 2007 and it should prove to be an important milestone in the development of flexicurity. VI) PROS, CONS AND RECCOMANDATIONS.