Domenico was a manager of a pharmaceutical company. The director asks him for a meeting and gives him a letter of dismissal speaking generically of "reorganisation".
Stfarmer Cannavò. When there was article 18, it could happen that you were fired just for getting married. Or, once a worker was fired, the company hired others, making them work 12-13 hours a day. At that time, the judge very often reinstated the employee.
With “Renzi's reforms” this will never happen again. The stories of those who have used Article 18 to defend their jobs can be read in the judgments of the Labor Courts. They are episodes of daily life known to anyone who has really worked (and it is certainly not the case of the premier).
That marriage is not to be done Take, for example, the appeal presented in Mantua after the approval of the new Fornero law (July 2012). The worker posts the marriage banns in March 2013. She is to get married in August. On July 16, the company fired her. Official reason: a decline in clientele. Immediately after the dismissal, however, the owner takes on a new job. The Court declared the dismissal void, with a sentence dated March 25, because "in conjunction with marriage" and ordered the reinstatement of the worker.
The story of Ivri, the Italian leader in private security, is even more striking. The dismissal is imposed for "objective reasons", determined by the loss of some orders and by the "contraction of the entrepreneurial activity". The judge, however, realizes that the company, just before getting rid of the employee, "declared that the turnover was growing". From 200 to 300 million euros thanks to the acquisition of clients such as Unicredit, Lottomatica, Carrefour. Not only that, a few months after his dismissal, he hired some employees to do the same tasks and required, due to the heavy workload, a daily schedule of "even 12/13 hours". The dismissal is canceled and the employee reinstated to his or her job.
If twelve hours seem few to you Mr. MG, on the other hand, is now of a certain age. He has been working at the ZW Since 1981 with the qualification of 2nd level construction worker, "in charge of the assembly and disassembly of scaffolding, asbestos removal, disposal and remediation activities". Hard work, therefore, which after 35 years of activity produces inevitable ailments. And so, MG gets a prescription forbidding him to lift weights over 12 kilos. On 18 February 2013, the company ordered the dismissal "due to physical unfitness for the job". For the judge, however, that dismissal is discriminatory because it occurs as a result of an occupational disease, recognized as such by Inail and which falls "fully" into the category of disabling diseases, "similar to the concept of handicap". The dismissal is therefore void due to "the discriminatory nature".
Be careful how you reply to the boss's email. The same happens in the case of PC. The worker has been with the company since 2007 and holds the position of Quality Department Manager. He has never had any complaints or disciplinary records, "not even the slightest". In July 2012, he received an email from his superior asking him to check some drawings that had been modified in the meantime. PC replies: "I trust by Tuesday 24 July to have the findings with the schedule for changing the programs". At that point, his boss replies: “You don't have to confide, you must have planned the date. If you gave July 24 as the date, it must be that. Otherwise indicate a different date which is not confident but certain, please”. Letter that infuriates the employee who replies: “Talking about planning in the group is like talking about psychology with a pig, no one has the slightest inkling of what it means to plan a minimal activity in this company. Therefore, if God wills, by Tuesday you will have everything you need". Nervous response, of course, which triggers the letter of dismissal. 
But for the court, from a "serene and overall assessment of the fact" emerges the "modestness of the episode in question, its low offensive relevance and its very modest disciplinary weight". In short, the employee has always behaved well and for reasons internal to the company he blurted out in front of a letter that the judge himself considers "unnecessarily disparaging".
There are thousands of stories like this. When the letter arrives without warning Still others have begun to arrive at our editorial office. Like that of Mauro, from 2005 to 2010, a sales engineer at an IT company with less than 15 employees. Upon returning from the summer holidays, in August 2010, "the employer gave me an unannounced letter" of termination of the employment relationship. Fired with a "false motivation". Under 15 employees there is no article 18 and therefore Mauro moved to a call center as a project worker. Now he is unemployed.
Domenico, on the other hand, was the manager of a pharmaceutical company. The director asks him for a meeting and gives him a letter of dismissal speaking generically of "reorganisation". “I thought about going to a café, but then I went to a lawyer. Who was then contacted by the counterparty's lawyer to find an economic transaction. Today we should be in a final phase, given that they seem to have accepted our request". Article 18 has this merit: it is a deterrent to avoid the worst behaviours. Perhaps this is also why Renzi wants to abolish it.
