The rules applicable to collective redundancies provide for strict timeframes aimed at bringing order to their management and ensuring that the works council and the unions are duly informed so that they can verify the respect of the rights of all employees involved. More specifically, the Italian Supreme Court has lately stated certain principles to be followed relating to the timing of such a procedure. Law no. 223/1991 (governing collective redundancies) provides for specific regulation of the procedure to be implemented where multiple dismissals are served within a specific time. It is mandatory to carry out said procedure whenever an employer with more than 15 employees intends to terminate the employment of at least 5 of them within 120 days. More specifically, Section 4, para. 9 of the law mentioned above requires sending to the competent authorities and works council a written notice of the final declaration of redundancy within a maximum of seven days from the first communication of the redundancies. The employer is obliged to share a detailed list of the employees who received such a measure, including an indication of the criteria applied to select them among the overall workforce. This communication is necessary to complete the procedure at issue, as it is deemed essential for serving the employees with the relevant dismissal. In this perspective, the Supreme Court has held that the simultaneous communication of the dismissal to both the employees and the works councils, as well as the competent administrative offices, is required for the validity of this final step of the procedure. The Italian Supreme Court (decision no. 17694/2022) recently stated the importance of such information reaching its addressees in a timely and exhaustive manner as essential for compliance with the transparency of the information itself, the completeness of the content and the adherence to the procedure provided for by the applicable laws on the matter. The Court further stated that compliance to such timing has the aim of "allowing the trade unions (and, through them, also individual employees) to promptly check the procedural righteousness of the operation carried out by the employer, also to acquire any element of knowledge and not to compress the potential choice of the employee to challenge the termination within the term provided for in Section 6, Law No. 604/1966”. Therefore, the fact that the dismissed employees may become aware of it after the weekly deadline does not rectify the employer’s non-compliance to the procedure to avoid any possible negative repercussions on the same employees.
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