The Decree of the Italian Ministry of Labour and Social Policies of 2 August 2022 was published in the Italian Official Gazette of 28 October 2022, with the following title: ‘Criteria and method of sanction assessment for worker non-compliance with training obligations while receiving extraordinary wage supplements’.
Sanctions for non-compliance
This decree implemented Italian Decree-Law no. 4/2022 as converted into Italian Law no. 25/2022, which states that workers benefiting from suspension or reduction of work activities must compulsorily participate in vocational training or retraining courses, as provided for by Italian Legislative Decree no. 148/2015. Workers who fail to comply with this obligation will be sanctioned, particularly if they do not have a justified reason for non-compliance.
Workers who fail to attend between 25% – 50% of the hours provided for each course without a justified reason will lose one third of their monthly paid salary, subject to, however, the minimum sanction of one month’s salary.
Workers who fail to attend between 50% and 80% of the courses provided will lose half of their monthly overtime payments, again subject to the minimum sanction mentioned above.
Furthermore, workers who fail to attend 80% or more of the courses provided will lose their right to guarantee fund contributions.
The ‘justified reasons’ detailed in the Decree
The decree also recognises justified reasons for waiving the training obligation. These are, for example, illness or accident, maternity, serious documented family reasons and, lastly, situations concerning judicial obligations.
Moreover, the recovery of the allowance does not invalidate the periods of notional contribution, nor does it provide for the repayment of family allowances.
For inspection purposes, as far as the assessments for the purposes of the guarantee fund are concerned, the decree stated that inspectors must check that the training was actually carried out according to the filed company programme.
If unjustified absences of workers without valid reason are found in the records of the body responsible for training, these will be reported to the relevant area National Social Security Entity (Istituto nazionale della previdenza sociale, ‘INPS’[LT1] ) office to proceed with the sanction procedure.
The procedures for recovering undue payments are provided for by the procedures of INPS or the other alternative bilateral solidarity funds provided for in Article 27 of Italian Legislative Decree no. 148/2015.