Court of Cassation: prolonged absence from the new job location does not justify dismissal

The Court of Cassation with judgement No. 13455, filed on 30 June 2016, said the dismissal for prolonged absence imposed on a working mother for failing to comply with her employer’s order to resume service at a business unit located in a different municipality from the one where the woman worked at the time of her pregnancy, is illegitimate. This is because, based on Art. 56 of Legislative Decree. No. 151/2001, the working mother, after her maternity leave, has the right to return to service in the same business unit of origin or another business unit within the same municipality, unless she expressly waives this right. Legislative Decree No. 151/2001, according to the Court, involves a complex set of guarantees and rights – aimed at ensuring the essential family function of the woman (now of parenting) as well as complying with the maternity safeguards – which “has effects in relation to the implementation of this relationship, requiring and legitimizing, in the same way as the standards of fairness and good faith, all those behaviours that may contribute together in their implementation”. Basically in serving a notice of dismissal to a working mother, one cannot disregard the special guarantees laid down by Legislative No. Decree 151/2001 on the safeguards for motherhood.