La recente riforma, eliminando ogni vincolo ai licenziamenti, può spingere gli imprenditori a usare ogni mezzo per liberarsi di manodopera scomoda, per esempio scegliendo di “risolvere” rapporti più costosi per favorire l’ingresso di precari
Of Lisa Bartoli, Experiences 07 aprile 2017 – rassegna.it
Left inactive for more than a year, without homework, isolated, without a desk or an office, forced to stand along the corridor, then moved to the cemetery, as a place of work, for carrying out the practices. There is enough for the Court of Cassation to establish the existence of a persecutory behavior on the part of the employer, to be configured as mobbing and consequently to condemn a Calabrian Municipality to pay the biological damage, by way of compensation, in favor of an employee of the municipal police. Judgment no. 2142 of 27 January is the latest, in chronological order, on the subject of mobbing, but there are not many others of the same sign.
It is difficult to demonstrate the employer's persecutory intent, a necessary basis for the recognition of behaviour mobbing, quasi impossibile quando mancano riferimenti legislativi certi, in grado di definirlo. “In Italia, manca una normativa specifica – ha spiegato il giuslavorista Francesco Bronzini, in occasione di un corso di formazione per giornalisti – e quindi le interpretazioni sono varie e a volte generano fraintendimenti. Spesso il mobbing si confonde con il demansionamento e la marginalizzazione, ma non è così. A questi elementi bisogna aggiungerne degli altri, indispensabili per poterlo configurare”. Sette sono i parametri da tenere presenti: primo è, innanzitutto, che la condotta persecutoria si verifichi sul posto di lavoro; che sia frequente e abbia una durata di almeno sei mesi; che si possa dimostrare di aver subito attacchi frontali, isolamento, demansionamento, attacchi alla reputazione, violenza, anche fisica, e minacce, in un crescendo persecutorio che duri nel tempo. In più c’è da aggiungere che l’onere probatorio è totalmente a carico del lavoratore mobbizzato, che potrà ricorrere anche alle testimonianze dei colleghi, i quali però potrebbero essere poco propensi ad agire, com’è facile immaginare, per paura di ritorsioni.
In this regulatory vacuum, it is not surprising how even justice shows a fluctuating orientation, muovendosi tra il rispetto dell’articolo 2087 del codice civile, che stabilisce l’obbligo dell’imprenditore di adottare le misure necessarie a “tutelare l’integrità fisica e la personalità morale del lavoratore” e una serie di norme specifiche sullo stalking, sulle molestie sessuali, fino a comprendere l’articolo 2103 del codice civile sul demansionamento, su cui le ricadute della nuova normativa sui licenziamenti, introdotta dal Jobs Act, si sentono di più.
Here is a summary of the main sentences issued, recalled in the volume "From mobbing to discomfort to work-related stress", edited by Fernando Cecchini (Nep editions), shows how difficult it is to find a linearity of jurisprudential orientation:
- Cassation 31 May 2011, n. 12048. Throw a lot of coins instead of the check on the employee's desk: the employer saves himself from mobbing.
- Cassation 16 September 2013. Bullying does not exist if the worker "reacts" to the harassment of the boss. The ability to defend and respond blow by blow excludes the existence of psycho-physical damage.
- Cassation 2 October-21 November 2013 n. 26143. AND the dismissal of those who record the conversations of colleagues without their knowledge is legitimate. The Labor Section confirmed the dismissal of a hospital doctor "due to the serious situation of suspicious mistrust and lack of collaboration that has arisen within the plastic surgery medical team". The man, in fact, had been accused of having recorded conversation excerpts from numerous colleagues without their knowledge, thus violating their right to privacy, and then using them in court to support a mobbing complaint, which he himself had presented to the head physician.
- Cassation 7 October 2015 n. 40320/15. There is bullying when a company removes the older and more experienced worker from his duties, preferring instead his less trained and younger colleagues.
- Cassation 25 November 2015, n. 24064. It is not mobbing, inactivity due to refusal of new assignments deemed disqualifying. The Labor Section has established that there is no demotion nor bullying where the de facto inactivity of the worker in the company is followed by the refusal of a new job offered to him and the interested party limits himself to inferring that said functions are disqualifying, without making any reference to elements of comparison such as to define the factor prejudicial to the professionalism acquired, since said inactivity cannot then be charged to the employer.
- Cassation 3 February 2016 n. 2116. Asking for overtime and denying holidays is not bullying. The Employment Section once again pronounces itself on the subject of mobbing, outlining its characteristics and limits: an employer who requests his employee to work overtime or refuses to grant holidays cannot be considered vexatious conduct.
- Cassation n. 2920/16. Organizational chaos, stress for the worker: no bullying. The request for compensation brought against the Ministry of Justice by an employee of a "district house", who complained about the precarious working conditions, was definitively rejected. The organizational and managerial deficiencies of the structure are evident, the repercussions on the female worker are also evident, but one cannot speak of mobbing.
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