{"id":24267,"date":"2019-12-02T10:40:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T09:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.delucapartners.it\/news\/the-employer-must-prove-the-national-collective-bargaining-agreement-that-it-considers-applying\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T16:14:54","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T15:14:54","slug":"the-employer-must-prove-the-national-collective-bargaining-agreement-that-it-considers-applying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.delucapartners.it\/en\/insights\/case-law-en\/the-employer-must-prove-the-national-collective-bargaining-agreement-that-it-considers-applying\/","title":{"rendered":"The employer must prove the national collective bargaining agreement that it considers applying"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The\nCourt of Cassation, under ruling no. 22367\/2019, reiterated a well-established\nview that, although the <strong>choice of the\ntype of applicable national collective bargaining agreement is a matter for the\nemployer<\/strong>, the latter must express and prove its decision<strong> unequivocally<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Facts\nof the case<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The case in question\nconcerns the dismissal of a worker at the end of a continuous period of illness\nlasting 237 days, justified as having exceeded his sick leave. <br>\nBoth the Court of First Instance and the Court of Appeal with territorial\njurisdiction had agreed that the service industry (collective agreement in\nforce at the time of employment), which provided for sick leave of 180 days,\ncould not be applied to the employment contract in question. The Confail\nConfimea collective agreement, which provided for sick leave 365 days, was\nconsidered applicable. According to the courts of first instance, the company\nhad not proven its membership to Confcommercio nor could the references\nreported in the letter of employment and payslips be considered sufficient to\nprove said membership, given that the company had not produced the National\nCollective Bargaining Agreement of the service industry. The courts of first\ninstance &#8211; given that the collective agreement of reference, for the purposes\nof identifying that the sick leave is that in force at the time of dismissal &#8211;\nalso considered the National Collective Bargaining Agreement invoked by the\nworker to be applicable to this case. The dismissal was declared unlawful and\nthe company was ordered to reinstate the worker and pay compensation under\nArticle 18 of Law No 300\/70. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The company appealed to the\nCourt of Cassation against the decision of the Court of Appeal, relying on two\npleas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The\ndecision of the Court of Cassation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\ncompany pleaded:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>with the first plea, that the courts of first\ninstance had not considered the well-established principle that the employee\nmust prove the existence and enforceability of the collective agreement claimed\nand <\/li><li>with the second pleas, that said courts had\nnot considered the worker&#8217;s explicit admission as to the applicability to the\nemployment contract of the National Collective Bargaining Agreement for the\nservice industry. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nCourt of Cassation declared both pleas unfounded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Firstly,\nthe Court of Cassation pointed out the principle according to which <strong>collective bargaining agreements<\/strong> that\nhave <strong>not<\/strong> been declared <strong>effective &#8220;<em>erga omnes<\/em>&#8221; <\/strong>pursuant to Law no. 741 dated 14 July 1959, <strong>apply <\/strong>only <strong>to individual contracts between persons registered with the stipulating\nassociations or between persons who have expressly adhered to the collective\nagreements and have implicitly accepted them through conclusive conduct,\nreflected in the constant and prolonged application of the relative clauses to\nindividual contracts <\/strong>(please see Cass. 10632\/2009). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Furthermore,\nwith reference to this principle, the Court of Cassation observed that, if one\nof the parties refers to a clause of a given National Collective Bargaining\nAgreement that is not effective &#8220;<em>erga\nomnes<\/em>&#8220;, basing itself on the importance that both have always been\ninspired by it to govern their contract, the court of first instance is\nresponsible for specifically assessing the conduct of the employer and worker\n(please see Cass. 10213\/2000). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\naddition, the Court of Cassation confirmed that the employer, in the event of\nan appeal against a dismissal, must prove, pursuant to Article 5 of Law\n604\/1966, the facts constituting the legitimate exercise of the power of\ndismissal which, in this case, also includes the exceeding of sick leave under\nthe terms of the collective bargaining agreement of the applicable sector. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In view\nof all the above, the Court of Cassation, in confirming the decision on the\nmerits, pointed out that the company had not proven its membership of\nConfcommercio, nor had it been a consortium member and\/or a member of\nFederdistribuzione &#8211; circumstances that could have proven the applicability of\nthe National Collective Bargaining Agreement of the service industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also&nbsp; according to the Court of Cassation, the\ncourts of first instance also correctly considered it unsuitable to prove the\napplicability to the present case of the National Collective Bargaining\nAgreement of the service industry, its reference in the employment contract or\nin the payslips bearing the references of institutions specific to that\ncontract. Thus, the employer had never produced any specific bargaining\nagreement. Therefore, the National Collective Labour Agreement in force at the\ntime of dismissal, i.e. the Confail\/Confimea agreement, produced by the worker\nand more consistent with the company&#8217;s corporate purpose, must be considered\napplicable to the employment contract in the case in question, as can be\ninferred from the certificate f incorporation in the deed. The Court thus\ndismissed the company&#8217;s appeal. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Court of Cassation, under ruling no. 22367\/2019, reiterated a well-established view that, although the choice of the type of applicable national collective bargaining agreement is a matter for the employer, the latter must express and prove its decision unequivocally. Facts of the case The case in question concerns the dismissal of a worker at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[167,177,190],"tags":[1012,952],"class_list":{"0":"post-24267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-case-law","7":"category-insights","9":"tag-ccnl-en","10":"tag-datore-di-lavoro-en"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The employer must prove the national collective bargaining agreement that it considers applying - De Luca &amp; Partners<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.delucapartners.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24267\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The employer must prove the national collective bargaining agreement that it considers applying - De Luca &amp; Partners\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Court of Cassation, under ruling no. 22367\/2019, reiterated a well-established view that, although the choice of the type of applicable national collective bargaining agreement is a matter for the employer, the latter must express and prove its decision unequivocally. 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