Italy: the President of the Republic does not enact the labour dispute system reform

The controversial issue of arbitration. Observations concerning how the proposed system would strengthen arbitration in individual work relationships and unblock the courts hover between two approaches. The first emphasizes the re-examination of basic principles of labour law involved in the current version of this law. These obstacles are illustrated particularly well by the Chief of State, who underlines the fact that authorizing individual recourse to arbitration in labour relations evidently ignores the worker's weak position at the time of hire, as well as the fact that to authorize arbitrators to make rulings according to equity questions the un-appealable character of the standards of labour law. The second approach, equally criticized, underlines that the cost and complexity of a procedure make this reform of interest to very few businesses (except a few unscrupulous entrepreneurs), ruining the opportunity represented by a law judiciously promoting arbitration. For it is true that the law does not institute one, but three channels for recourse to arbitration. The first relies on a now “possible” (it was obligatory until recently) attempt at reconciliation, and does not present the most difficulties (article 412 of the Italian Civil Code). The second echoes the procedures foreseen by collective agreements (article 412 ter of the Italian Civil Code). The third, on the other hand, validates integration of the pre-dispute arbitration agreement in the initial labour contract, since once it is signed, it intercedes within the framework of the procedure called “certification” of labour contracts (article 312 quater). In particular, the law describes the arbitration procedure which ensues. It is a way to promote the creation of certification commissions, foreseen in 2003 within the framework of the major labour reforms to regulate the problem of false labour contracts, at the heart of the matter, which stayed almost dead-letter since these commissions did not find support among employers or unions. The Chief of State correctly observes that potential interventions by these commissions from the time the labour relationship is established will not in any way regulate the issue of a worker’s weakness when seeking work. It is true that the law foresees that the pre-dispute arbitration agreement is regulated by inter-professional agreements or collective agreements but, added to the fact that in Italy collective agreements do not apply if the employer does not belong to the sector association, the law leaves a delay of 12 months for social partners to intervene, after which the ministry by decree implements individual acceptance of the pre-dispute arbitration agreement.