Collective dismissal of managers

The rigorous procedure governing collective redundancies has also been extended to managers pursuant to Law 161/2014, which has inserted paragraph 1-quinquies to art. 24 of Law 223/1991.

The change was imposed following a sentence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (case C-596/12), which, in fulfilment of the obligations deriving from Directive no. 98/59, concluded in this way.

Recently, with sentence no. 1380/2019, the Milan Court of Appeal stated that, by virtue of the aforementioned extension, including in the event of collective dismissal of managers, the communication pursuant to art. 4, c. 9, of Law 223/1991 is always necessary.

The question arose from the moment that a company had launched a collective dismissal procedure involving some executives, omitting the formalities referred to in the aforementioned regulation on the basis of the fact that - according to it - the communication opening the procedure, not having the managerial category access to the mobility lists would have been useless, since it would not have fulfilled its main purpose, identified in the need to allow public administration offices to evaluate the criteria for choosing redundant workers to be dismissed.

The Milanese judges disregarded this approach, clarifying that “this formality must be respected even in the event of the dismissal of managers. The procedure aims to allow union and individual control over the overall correctness of the operation".

It follows that the ratio of the provision, traced in allowing an overall ex ante control of the procedure by the trade unions - and not, therefore, in the usefulness of the communication burdens in view of the subsequent registration of workers in the mobility lists - must be considered fully referable also to executives. (CP)