Lawful dismissal for cause in the case of behaviours that, as a whole, are considered to imply a certain degree of seriousness

The Labour Division of Milan Court, declared that the dismissal for cause by one of our Client Company of a foundry worker is lawful (i) given that the worker challenged the instructions of the shift supervisor and plant manager, using offensive language; (ii) from a different and separate point of view, because it was later ascertained that the worker had come to work under the influence of drugs; (iii) and because the same, with his behaviour, had jeopardized his own safety and that of his colleagues, to the point of requiring the intervention, during the night, of the plant manager and, later, the police; (iv) because the above worker denied the charges made against him both during the justification and appeal stages of the dismissal procedure. In the case in question, the Presiding Judge pointed out that the behaviours of the worker, if considered individually, would not constitute cause for dismissal. The same Judge however considered that the simultaneous behaviours of the worker as a whole must be judged in a different manner, and accordingly ruled that "the behaviours (…), considered as a whole,imply a level of seriousnesswhich is certainly not secondary, above all given the particular dangerousness of the workplace and processing carried out therein, that justifies the dismissal of the defendant".