The guidelines of the INL on the supply of labour

Through its circulars No. 6 and No. 7 of 2018, the Ispettorato nazionale del lavoro (namely, the national labour inspectorate or “INL”) has fixed the guidelines on the supply of labour, starting from the content of judgement No. 254/2017 with which the Constitutional Court ruled on the scope of application of article 29 of Legislative Decree No. 276/2003, by also extending it to sub-supply agreements. In particular the INL, with its circular No. 6/2018, has given operational instructions to the investigators, by mentioning that all those situations in which there is a “dissociation” between the employer and the user of the work, including the cases of relations between consortium and consortium companies, are worth being inspected. With its circular No. 7/2018 the INL, instead, has faced the issue of the network agreements, mentioning the formal elements to be checked in case of any inspection, such as: (i) the existence of an agreement; (ii) the filing of the agreement with the Companies’ Register; (iii) reference in the agreement as to any possible co-employment of the employment relationship. The INL has then clarified that any possible omissions pertaining to the salary or to the contributions expose to liability on the side of all co-employers, effective as from the “pooling” of the employees concerned, given the fact that the general principle of joint and several liability under article 29, paragraph 2, of Legislative Decree No. 276/2003 applies to the case at issue.