By an order of 25 April 2022, the Court of Bologna held that the early termination by the employer, effective immediately, of the financial aspects of an enterprise bargaining agreement is anti-union behaviour. The contract in question was valid from 1 June 2019 to 31 March 2023 and was to be renewed year by year, unless terminated by either party with 6 months’ prior notice. The agreement also covered several emoluments, and had been supplemented in February 2020 by providing that said emoluments would be paid on certain dates in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 to those staff who planned to use, in each year, the current annual leaves and part of the annual leave accrued in prior periods. The Court held that it was “utterly unlawful” for the employer to stop applying the financial clauses of the Agreement and paying the emoluments in question, based on the general lack of planning of the current and past annual leaves on the part of a few employees. In the Court’s view, there was no contractual provision or employee conduct that could justify the termination. The employer’s Termination “harms the image and credibility of the union that negotiated the agreements later disregarded”.
