16 September 2025
Business transfer
Business transfer and extraordinary administration: the Alitalia–ITA case reaches the EU Court of Justice
Italian Supreme Court, Labour Section

The long-standing issue surrounding the transition from Alitalia to ITA Airways returns to the forefront of labour law debate. By order dated 16 September 2025, the Rome Tribunal referred several preliminary questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union, seeking clarification on whether, and to what extent, the transfer of Alitalia’s “Aviation” branch to ITA can be considered a business transfer within the meaning of Article 2112 of the Italian Civil Code and Directive 2001/23/EC.

The case originates from the transfer of aircraft, slots, and operational activities from Alitalia, under extraordinary administration, to the newly formed public company ITA. While service continuity was substantially maintained, employment contracts were not automatically transferred. Only a portion of the staff was rehired under new conditions, giving rise to extensive litigation.

The Rome Tribunal deemed it necessary to seek interpretative guidance from the European Court to clarify whether the exception to employee protections applicable in “liquidation” procedures may also apply to extraordinary administration, which by law retains a potentially conservative function. The judge also asked whether the economic discontinuity identified by the European Commission for State aid purposes can automatically exclude employee protections, and whether such a rule would result in unequal treatment contrary to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

The Court of Justice’s decision will have systemic significance: it will clarify whether, in insolvency contexts, workers’ rights can truly be left grounded while business activity continues to fly.

16 October 2025
Illness and injury
Employee illness: limits on employer’s control powers
Italian Supreme Court, Labour Section

An employee on sick leave was dismissed after her employer obtained medical information through a private investigative agency. The lower courts upheld the dismissal, considering the investigation sufficient to prove that the claimed illness did not exist.

The Supreme Court, however, upheld the worker’s appeal, ruling that an employer’s power to monitor an employee during sick leave does not extend to the direct verification of health conditions, which fall within the sphere of personal privacy. The only entity authorised to carry out medical assessments is the fiscal physician appointed by the competent authorities.

Employers may, through investigative agencies, verify an employee’s off-duty conduct only if it may compromise trust or indicate abuse of sick leave. However, such investigations must never concern clinical aspects or medical information.

This principle reinforces the clear distinction between medical control and disciplinary control, setting strict limits on the employer’s authority and strengthening the protection of employee privacy.

23 October 2025
Fixed-term employment
Retroactive law on compensation for temporary workers: ECHR condemns Italy for violation of fair trial
European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)

Several fixed-term employees had obtained from Italian courts the conversion of their contracts into permanent ones and compensation for lost wages.

However, during the proceedings, a new law — Law No. 183/2010 — retroactively changed the criteria for calculating compensation, significantly reducing its amount and applying it to pending cases as well.

In its judgment of 23 October 2025, the European Court of Human Rights held that this retroactive legislative intervention violated Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, as it affected the outcome of ongoing disputes, undermining the balance between the parties and public confidence in justice.

According to the Strasbourg Court, while States may generally modify compensation criteria, there were no “compelling reasons of general interest” justifying the retroactive application of the new rule.

The Court excluded, however, a violation of the right to property, as the law did not deprive workers of the right to compensation but merely reduced its amount.

The Italian State was ordered to pay the applicants both pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages.

30 September 2025
Workplace harassment (mobbing)
Workplace mobbing: Supreme Court reaffirms limits of employer liability
Italian Supreme Court, Labour Section

An employee sued her company, claiming to have been the victim of repeated and humiliating conduct amounting to mobbing. The Tribunal partially upheld the claim, recognising employer liability and awarding damages for physical and moral harm. The Court of Appeal overturned that decision, finding no causal link between the alleged conduct and the damage claimed.

The Supreme Court upheld the appellate decision, reiterating that mobbing requires multiple systematic and repeated acts aimed at marginalising or humiliating the employee, carried out with a persecutory intent — an element that must be strictly proven. Mere workplace conflict or isolated inappropriate behaviour is not sufficient to justify compensation.

The Court reaffirmed that mobbing-related damages require proof of the employer’s conduct, the harmful event, the causal connection, and the persecutory intent — which cannot be presumed from isolated tensions or legitimate organisational decisions.

2 October 2025
Industrial relations
Anti-union conduct: Supreme Court confirms that a union’s interest persists as long as the harmful effects remain
Italian Supreme Court, Labour Section

A trade union brought an action for anti-union conduct against a logistics company accused of sanctioning employees who participated in a strike, seeking cessation of the conduct and restitution of the deducted amounts.

The Tribunal initially upheld the claim, but on appeal, the action was declared inadmissible for lack of standing, a decision later confirmed by the Court of Appeal.

The Supreme Court overturned that ruling, clarifying that a union’s interest in bringing an action under Article 28 of the Workers’ Statute persists as long as the effects of the alleged conduct continue or until a final determination of its anti-union nature is made. Neither the passage of time nor the subsequent repayment of amounts to employees extinguishes that interest, which remains until all harmful effects are fully removed.

The Court thus reaffirmed the independence of collective union action from individual workers’ claims and the central importance of effective protection of trade union freedom.

13 October 2025
Individual dismissal
Multiple disciplinary dismissals on the same day: Court clarifies meaning of “simultaneity”
Court of Appeal of Bologna

An employee received, on the same day, two separate disciplinary dismissals: one for unjustified absences and another for abnormal use of a company fuel card. Both notices were sent on 28 June 2023, two minutes apart, and delivered to the employee—then detained in prison—by his lawyer on 4 July.

The Tribunal declared the worker’s appeal inadmissible for lack of interest, considering the second dismissal valid and effective as it was not challenged. The Bologna Court of Appeal confirmed this reasoning, stating that, although formally distinct, the two dismissals must be regarded as simultaneous acts rather than successive ones. For assessing simultaneity, what matters is not the time of postal dispatch but the time the acts became known to the employee — in this case, the same date.

Thus, the jurisprudential rule allowing multiple dismissals only for newly discovered or subsequent facts does not apply when the acts are simultaneous.

The decision reiterates a significant principle for employment practice: multiple dismissals notified on the same day for already known facts must be treated as a single expression of the employer’s intent to terminate, making any challenge to only one of the two measures inadmissible.

13 October 2025
Settlement, conciliation, consensual termination
Union conciliation: unchallengeable if assistance is genuine and concessions are mutual
Tribunal of Trani

An employee filed a lawsuit seeking to annul a union conciliation agreement settling her collaboration with the company, claiming the agreement lacked validity requirements and that the relationship should instead be recognised as employment, entitling her to back pay and contributions.

The Trani Tribunal dismissed the claim, finding the union conciliation valid and unchallengeable. The judge recalled that, under Article 2113 of the Civil Code, waivers and settlements concerning mandatory employment rights are challengeable unless made in a “protected setting”, such as the union venue under Article 411 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

For a union conciliation to be unchallengeable, the union representative’s assistance must be genuine, and the agreement must include reciprocal concessions by both parties. In this case, the court found that the employee had been adequately assisted and that the agreement clearly included her waiver of any further claims in exchange for a negotiated payment, alongside the employer’s waiver of potential damage claims.

The decision reaffirms the established principle that a union conciliation — if genuinely assisted and reflecting a real balance of interests — cannot later be contested by the employee.