Law

1. Perché il diritto del lavoro ha parlato poco del datore di lavoro e perché oggi ne parla molto e al plurale. 2. L'indifferenza del codice alla natura del datore di lavoro. 3. La "materializzazione" della figura del datore di lavoro: le tesi del raccordo necessario fra subordinazione e utilizzazione effettiva della prestazione di lavoro. 4. La trasformazione dello spazio interno: « Tutto ciò che è solido si scioglie nell'aria». 4.1. Verso un approccio funzionale di identificazione del datore di lavoro: il caso della somministrazione di lavoro. 4.2. Altri casi di definizione funzionale della figura del datore. 4.2.1. Nella legislazione previdenziale e sulla sicurezza nel lavoro. 4.2.2. Nella tutela dei diritti fondamentali e dell'eguaglianza. 4.3.

This paper explores how Italian labour lawyers, on the basis of different analytical perspectives, have approached the European integration process.
Attention to the effectiveness of law, support for schools of legal pluralism, and the anchoring of legal discourse to the premises of constitutionalism are the components of the Italian tradition which embodies the attempt undertaken by labour lawyers in this decade to place their analyses within the more general stream of research on the overall direction of European integration, to rethink and redefine the process and the place occupied within it by social law and social rights.
The impetus to cast off the clothes of a national labour law scholar and don those of a European one has revolved around the two apparently contrasting trends that are currently present on the Community scene: on the one hand, the advancement of a European constitutionalism which has marked a normative turning point in the unification process; on the other hand, the emergence of multi-level governance techniques that are markedly different from the classical Community method.
The paper argues that the most significant contribution that labour lawyers can provide, in view of their cultural background and tradition, to the legal theories on integration is that of proposing pluralism not only in terms of pluralism of norms, but also in terms of pluralism of institutions and powers. European legal integration cannot be understood and described as an autonomous process, divorced from the political sphere and competing social interests. The “anomaly” of labour law with respect to the other branches of legal science, its anti-dogmatic and anti-formalist approach, endows it with a unique ability to keep pace with the time of social change and predisposes it to grasp the highly dynamic and evolutionary character of the integration process.

Sommario 1. -Il rapporto tradizionale tra contratto sociale e contratto di genere: diseguale eppure ragionevole. la traduzione del modello sul piano giuridico 2. -La soluzione della legislazione di parità degli anni '70: eguali nei diritti e diseguali nei fatti 3. -La tutela antidiscriminatoria di origine comunitaria: correggere le imperfezioni del mercato. i limiti del divieto di discriminazioni dirette 4. -Il riconoscimento delle differenze: la legge n. 125/1991

The paper explores different visions of the enterprise, maintaining the conventional nature of the concept of enterprise itself, depending from the legal and social context in which it operates. It firstly analyses how the Court of Justice and the national courts have shaped the meaning of undertaking and of “productive unit” in order to support specific legal and institutional policies. The paper then explores the visions of the enterprise as an expression of the economic freedom of the entrepreneur, the “socially embedded” enterprise and, finally,  the enterprise as digitalized work organization. The paper claims that the intrinsic vagueness  of the idea allows to adapt it to the context in which it operates and make it functional to the needs to be met each time.

English version of the article "Noi siamo quello che facciamo". Prassi ed etica dell'impresa post-fordista.

Abstract
Work, practices and ethos in the post-Fordist enterprise

The last few decades have seen the growth of a social and economic process that has gradually shifted the focus of labour law from one end of the employment relationship to the other, putting the enterprise back into the centre stage. 
Labour lawyers often base their analyses of this process on two assumptions: the gradual dematerialization of the enterprise and the decline of the key role of the employment contract in work organisation.
In their view the enterprise has dematerialized because it is no longer synonymous with the organisation of material goods but with an immaterial “ability to be competitive”. On the other hand, the reduced technical and production resources allocated within the enterprise, which are subject to the principle of hierarchy as a result of outsourcing, have diminished the role of the employment contract as an essential feature of work organisation.
These two assumptions have led labour lawyers to increasingly focus on phenomena such as enterprise networks or groups, but it has also led them to forget the "physical nature" of the enterprise and of work i.e. their irrepressibly material nature.
The thesis of this article, which is the result of analyses carried out in recent years, takes issue with both these assumptions.
First, it is argued that while the enterprise may have dematerialized as an economic space, it certainly has not done so as regards work organisation, or as a place in which social power is exercised. Furthermore, some contingent conditions, which have been considered long-lasting, when not irreversible, have weighed on the analyses of the declining role of the employment contract, as firms strive to adapt themselves and be more flexible through outsourcing. In the current economic climate, in which competitive advantages are transient and unstable and must be renewed constantly, the enterprise’s ability to compete focuses mainly on its skills, its (technological, organisational and relational) knowledge, as well as its capacity to perceive changes and be innovative. This requires continuous and structured contractual exchanges, both among enterprises at the production level and between enterprises and workers. In this context, the employment contract retains a central function because it remains the legal instrument which is best able to maintain human capital (capabilities).
It is  then argued that the enterprise tends to become not only the expression of a particular vision of the market, which melds the interests of employers and workers into a single interest, but also of a particular vision of society, whose welfare the enterprise both guarantees and oversees. This explains why today, two seemingly conflicting trends in labour law - both based on the growing self-regulation of labour relations - can co-exist and even merge. They are the increasing individualization of the regulation of labour relations and the spread of corporate social responsibility (CSR) systems and practices, which are accompanied, as a consequence, by the decline of binding legal or collective regulations and of judicial oversight.
Finally, the article analyses how these trends are the expression of the new role of the enterprise as a political subject, which is responsible for shaping the interests of society as a whole and not just its own interests, and being the bearer of its ethos. In so doing, the enterprise tends to present itself as the self-referential centre of this process, giving expression to what Michel Foucault called "bio-politics".

Sommario: 1. Soggetti o oggetti del diritto? 2. La dottrina del lavoro degli anni '70 in un'istantanea famosa: l'analisi critica di Giovanni Tarello. 3. Le ragioni della scelta privatistica del diritto sindacale italiano: il diritto privato come strumento di libertà e come strumento di conservazione. 4. La stagione dell'autocritica e la " conservazione del padre " attraverso le teorie del contratto come equilibrio transitorio e del diritto promozionale come pratica del " doppio binario ". 5. Lo Statuto dei lavoratori: dal pluralismo immaginato al pluralismo reale. L'ingresso del sindacato nello spazio pubblico. 6. L'invasione dello spazio pubblico e la perdita di autorità del paradigma privatistico-ordinamentale.

1. Anyone looking back over the doctrinal debate in the aftermath of the enactment of Directives 2000/43/EC and 2000/78/EC and the expectations for social change that they had raised would think that the European Court of of the new anti-discrimination law is disappointing both from a quantitative point of view (up until the present there have been fewer than a score of references for preliminary rulings and just eleven decisions) and from a qualitative point of view ( vary, and there are evident signs of disagreement among judges and Advocates General on questions of substance, such as the existence or otherwise within the Community legal order of a general principle of non-discrimination, the depht of judicial scrutiny, the relationships between national and European sources and the horizontal effects of the directives) 1 .

L’articolo esamina la disciplina del licenziamento discriminatorio alla luce delle modifiche
apportate recentemente all’art. 18 dello Statuto dei lavoratori, ragionando dapprima
sulla tendenza a trasformare la tutela antidiscriminatoria nella sola forma di tutela
assoluta del diritto al mantenimento del posto di lavoro. L’articolo si sofferma poi
sulla specificità della tutela discriminatoria, in particolare sulla sua funzione di diagnosi
di fenomeni di diseguaglianza sociale. Successivamente, attraverso l’analisi delle differenze
fra il giudizio sulla giustificazione del recesso e il giudizio di discriminazione,
e del relativo onere della prova, viene evidenziato il diverso test di controllo utilizzato
nei due casi. Infine, a partire dalla critica della tesi per cui un licenziamento adottato
per giusta causa o giustificato motivo non può essere, al tempo stesso, discriminatorio,
l’articolo esamina il caso del licenziamento per rappresaglia. La tesi sostenuta è che
il licenziamento ritorsivo dovuto a uno dei fattori vietati debba essere considerato come
un’ipotesi tipica di discriminazione, mentre un’interpretazione estensiva, di tipo
funzionalista, dei divieti di discriminazione potrebbe ricondurre quello ritorsivo per
motivi non nominati a un’ipotesi atipica di discriminazione-molestia.
THE DISMISSAL IN LIGHT OF THE ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAW
The article examines the discipline of discriminatory dismissal in the light of the changes
recently made to art. 18 of the Workers’ Statute. The article first reflects on the tendency to
turn anti-discrimination protection into the only form of absolute protection of the right to
maintain one’s job. It then focuses on the specificity of anti-discrimination protection, particularly
on its diagnostic role of social inequality. Subsequently, through the analysis of the
differences between judicial scrutiny of the reasons for dismissal and that of suspect discrimination,
and the respective burden of proof regimes, it highlights the different tests used
in the two types of judgments. Finally, starting from a critical analysis of the thesis according
to which a dismissal for justified reasons cannot be considered, at the same time, discriminatory,
the paper examines the case of retaliatory dismissal. It is argued that a retaliatory
dismissal due to one of the prohibited factors must be considered a typical case of discrimination,
while a broad, functionalist interpretation of the prohibition of discrimination
could allow a retaliatory dismissal grounded on an unnamed factor to be read as an
atypical case of harassment.

L’articolo si interroga sulle ragioni per le quali nel caso italiano manca un’esperienza di strategic
litigation simile al caso Brown, suggerendo che quest’assenza sia dovuta anche al nostro modello di
educazione giuridica, al fatto che – per dirla in breve – nelle nostre università il modo di insegnare
e di apprendere il diritto fa sì che chi praticherà il diritto sia esposto per lo più a problemi di diritto,
ma è raramente esposto a problemi di giustizia ed è difficile che si confronti con l’esistenza di chi è
discriminato o vive condizioni di svantaggio e deprivazione sociale.
L’opposizione a questo modo di intendere l’educazione giuridica e, in buona sostanza, di intendere
il diritto stesso, è una delle ragioni fondamentali per cui, nel corso degli ultimi dieci anni, sono
nate anche in Italia le cliniche legali, le quali non sono solo un metodo alternativo di fare didattica,
ma sono anche un modo alternativo di guardare al diritto. È per questo motivo che dalle cliniche legali
si può sviluppare una promettente riflessione teorica (oltre che una pratica innovativa) sull’uso del
diritto in funzione di strategie di cambiamento sociale

Abstract: This paper explores how Italian labour lawyers, on the basis of different analytical perspectives, have approached the European integration process. Attention to the effectiveness of law, support for schools of legal pluralism, and the anchoring of legal discourse to the ...

Arbete och Hälsa Arbete och Hälsa (Work and Health) is a scientific report series published by the National Institute for Working Life. The series presents research by the Institute's own researchers as well as by others, both within and outside of Sweden. The series publishes scientific original works, dissertations, criteria documents and literature surveys. Arbete och Hälsa has a broad targetgroup and welcomes articles in different areas. The language is most often English, but also Swedish manuscripts are welcome. Summaries in Swedish and English as well as the complete original text are available at www.niwl.se/ as from 1997. Preface An agreement has been signed by the Dutch Expert Committee on Occupational Standards (DECOS) of the Dutch Health Council and the Swedish Criteria Group for Occupational Standards (SCG) of the Swedish National Institute for Working Life. The purpose of the agreement is to write joint scientific criteria documents for occupational exposure limits. The numerical limits will be developed separately by The Netherlands and Sweden according to their different national policies. The evaluation of health effects of Butyl acetates is a product of this agreement.