LABOUR – The Italian Supreme Court on conflicts between collective agreements of different levels

Newsletter n. 91 – December 2023

LABOUR

The Italian Supreme Court on conflicts between collective agreements of different levels

On 6 November 2023, the Italian Supreme Court has issued a ruling (No. 30812/2023) establishing that the principles of hierarchy and specialty typical of legislative sources cannot be used to resolve a conflict between collective agreements of different levels. The conflict between collective agreements of different territorial scope (in this case, national and regional) is to be resolved not on the basis of the principles of hierarchy and specialty inherent to legislative sources, but on the basis of the actual will of the social parties, to be deduced through the coordination of the various provisions of collective bargaining, all having equal dignity and binding force, so that even territorial agreements can extend the effectiveness of national contracts and derogate from them, even in pejus, without precluding the provisions of Section 2077 of the Italian Civil Code, subject only to the safeguarding of rights already definitively acquired in the assets of workers, who cannot receive detrimental treatment by reason of the later legislation of equal or different level.