The procedural guarantees referred to in Art. 7 of the Workers’ Charter are also applied to disciplinary dismissal of a senior executive

With its decision no. 15204 of 20 June 2017, the Court of Cassation intervened in the subject of the disciplinary dismissal of a senior executive without prior application of the procedure referred to in Art. 7 of Italian Law no. 300/1970. The Supreme Court referred to some recent pronouncements, including Plenary Sitting decisions (Cass. No. 2553 of 10 February 2015, Cass. Plen. Sit. No. 7880 of 6-30 March 2007) and clarified that “the procedural guarantees laid down under Art. 7 of Italian Law no. 300/1970 are an expression of the principle of general basic guarantees safeguarding all forms of disciplinary dismissal”, which is applied to all forms of subordinate employment, without making a distinction between employees whatever their position in the hierarchy. A different kind of interpretation would be in contrast with the courts’ decisions on the application of the law, because it would revive “an old and hackneyed notion of a senior executive as an alter ego of the entrepreneur”, and would be in breach of the principle of “audiatur et altera pars”, as a worker’s indefectible guarantee. The Court maintained, moreover, that senior executives are expressly included in the listings in Art. 2095 of the Italian Civil Code and, as such, are included in the regulations governing employees in general. By failing to implement the procedural guarantees referred to in Art.7, the resulting claims will be those laid down in collective labour agreements for unjustified dismissal (payment of an indemnity in lieu of notice and of a supplementary indemnity).