A letter of transfer signed in acceptance thereof is valid

With its judgement no. 609/2017, the Court of Milan, acting as Labour Court, has ruled on the issue of the validity of a letter of transfer signed in acceptance thereof.  In the case at hand, a worker went to court seeking a declaration of invalidity of a transfer enjoined to him because, in his opinion, it was discriminatory and in any case clearly violated Article 2103, Italian Civil Code, according to which in order for a transfer from a production unit to another to be valid, this must be due to well-proven technical, organizational and production reasons. However, as clarified by this judgement, the letter of transfer of employment had been signed “in acceptance thereof” by the worker, thus expressing his consent to the change of workplace.  To make matters worse, according to the Court, since the worker was a member of the provincial executive board of a renowned trade union and performed trade-union activities “one has to assume that he knew the meaning of its consent”.  Based on the above, it follows that in order to object that the consent is invalid, it is necessary to substantiate and prove that the consent is faulty.