The Presidency of the Republic like Pontius Pilate. While he is concerned with supporting the reasons for the green transition or the privatization of beaches, he defines himself as not competent to express his opinion on the rights of illegitimately dismissed workers. People who, as a result of the Fornero law, having won their labor cases after a decade, find themselves forced to repay social safety nets received, obtaining in exchange only twelve months’ compensation.
A paradoxical story well known to the Ministry of Labor
In April last year the undersecretary Claudio Durigon he had quickly promised a solution. But nothing has happened since then. So Cub wrote to the President Sergio Mattarella with the aim of having support in defense of workers in difficulty and received in exchange only a formal response: “In relation to your letter received on 5 December 2023, despite the utmost consideration of what is represented, I regret to inform you that the President of the Republic cannot make any assessment of the facts that constitute the subject of your request, nor take measures in the direction you requested” reads the response.
Claudio Durigon, undersecretary of labor and social policies
“He, in fact, does not have any direct means of intervening on other state bodies in the exercise of the powers assigned to them by law” we read.
“Therefore, the issue you represent has been brought to the attention of the Ministry of Labor and social policies, for assessments of competence” concludes Colle. As if to say that workers’ rights, even in an extremely technical part, do not concern the defense of the constitution.
There is no doubt that this is a very complex matter
It is the result of a regulatory hole in the Fornero law which has created a sort of new category of redundants. The story also emerged with the illegitimate dismissals of approximately 200 Air Italy and Alitalia workers who were unfairly shown the door and have thus decided to appeal. However, it took several years to obtain a sentence, a period in which these workers received social safety nets, albeit for a shorter period of time. When the ruling in favor of the workers arrived, a bitter surprise also arrived: INPS has asked to return the social safety nets received.
The problem, however, is that due to Fornero, illegitimately dismissed workers who then obtained justice in court are only entitled to twelve months’ compensation, much less than what was requested of them by INPS.
For the union it is an unacceptable situation
“This matter is known to the entire Government, in addition to Meloni, Salvini, Calderone, Urso, there are many undersecretaries who we have invited to intervene to overcome this unacceptable situation. Everyone pretends not to understand the gravity of what is happening,” he underlined Antonio Amoroso, manager of Cub Trasporti.
“Fornero has exempted employers from paying the monthly salaries elapsed from dismissal to reinstatement, defining only the payment of compensation of 12 months, regardless of the time spent waiting for the judge’s ruling, usually well beyond the calendar year” he adds.
An unfair rule
“The problem is that Fornero did not modify the rule which provided for the restitution by the reinstated worker of the social safety nets received, from the moment in which he was compensated with the payment by the employer of all the monthly salaries accrued during the illicit suspension from service. Therefore, with the current law, it establishes that a reinstated worker is not only compensated with only 12 months’ salaryoften after years without work and pay, but finds himself forced to repay the shock absorbers for amounts much higher than what he received”.
The union will appeal to the Court of Justice
For Cub this mechanism has generated a perverse affection. According to Amoroso, in fact, “in this way, in fact, it has become inconvenient for the worker to go to court when you suffer an illegitimate expulsion from work. An unacceptable provision that anticipated the cancellation of art.18 made by Renzi for all workers hired after 7.3.2015″.
For this reason Cub intends to appeal to the Court of Justice of the EU and the Constitutional Court. The right to defense provided for by the European laws as well as by the constitutional charter has been cancelled. We hope that the President of the Republic will go beyond the laconic response and intervene by urging the overcoming of the evident unconstitutionality of the existing legislation” concludes the trade unionist.