Background information

On 19 October 2020, the Minister for Public Administration issued a new set of measures relating to the teleworking arrangements for the public employment to face the so-called second wave of COVID-19 infections in the country.

The Decree, published on the Official Gazette no. 268 on 28 October 2002, applies to all the public administrations listed by the Legislative Decree no. 165/2001 (art. 1, c. 2), namely all the public administrations excluding the armed forces.

Content of measure

The Decree established the teleworking for the public employees as an ordinary work arrangement until 31 December 2020, hence not requiring an individual agreement with the employer when adopted, as according to the Law no. 81/2017 (article 19).

Each public administration is required to organise and schedule the turnover among all the employees, in order to ensure that no more than 50% of the personnel work on site, while the remaining share work through teleworking. However, the share of public employees working remotely can be increased by the executives in each administration according to the spread of the COVID-19 infections in the area.

The Decree also established that all the meetings have to be organised on-line: in presence meetings are forbidden, unless there are specific and justified reasons.

Finally, the Decree introduced working time flexibility to the personnel working in presence, in terms of entry and exit time, as a way to prevent gatherings at the entrances.

Use of measure

The measures have been introduced very recently: information on the application are not available yet. However, we can expect the adoption of these measures by the whole public administration in the country.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Applies to all workers	Sector specific set of companies	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government	No special funding required

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	No involvement	No involvement
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• No involvement
• Main level of involvement: N/A

Involvement

The main trade unions in the public sector (Fp Cgil, Fp Cisl, Fpl Uil and Uilpa) have not been involved in the definition of these measures.

Views and reactions

The main trade unions in the public sector (Fp Cgil, Fp Cisl, Fpl Uil and Uilpa) declared to be deeply unsatisfied with these measure adopted by the government for the public employment, threatening to call a general strike. They claimed more financial resources to hire new personnel in the public administrations; new resources for the renewal of the collective agreements in the sector; and ad hoc collective agreements to regulate the teleworking in the public sector, fearing an unregulated use of this arrangement detrimental for the workers’ rights.

Sectors and occupations

This case is not occupation-specific.

Sources

• 20 October 2020: Il Diario del Lavoro (www.ildiariodellavoro.it)
• 20 October 2020: CGIL (www.flcgil.it)
• 28 October 2020: Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana (www.gazzettaufficiale.it)