Italy : a company exiting an employer’s body must comply with the sector relevant collective contract until its expiry date (Court of Cassation)

In judgment No. 21537 handed down on 20 August 2019 Italy’s Court of Cassation, in a ruling on an appeal made by the Turin Filctem-Cgil trade union, held that when a sector national collective agreement (NCA) has an expiry date (as is the case with most national collective agreements) then it links all its counterparties until that expiry date has passed. No entity can release itself from the obligation to comply with the NCA ‘in any unilateral way prior to its expiry date, even if it withdraws its membership from the one of the signatory organisation. A company that withdraws its membership from an employer’s body (in this case an auto parts company had quit Federgomma, the Confindustria rubber & plastics sector employer’s body), has to continue to apply the relevant NCA (in this case the Gomma-Plastica NCA) until it expires, even if the employer finds its too onerous in light of the economic circumstances, and even if it gives notice ahead of leaving. Only after the expiry date elapses can the company decide to change the reference NCA. If an NCA has no expiry date then the company does have the right to relieve itself of its obligations. With this ruling the Court of Cassation has cancelled and overturned an earlier ruling by the Turin Appeals Court (which had decided in favor of the auto parts company) and it sent the case back to the same Appeals Court albeit constituted differently.