Italy

This chapter deals with the process of adjudicating substantive employment rights in Italy. In particular, the study is developed along three levels of investigation: first the industrial relations background; then the court system from its beginnings to the present day; and finally the extra-judicial system, e.g. conciliation and arbitration. In so doing, the author takes in account the complex framework of legislation and the main important official data on Italian procedures in order to reconstruct it and then evaluate the effectiveness of each system. Despite the long-standing problems (delay, complexity, cultural resistance to alternative dispute resolution, ecc.) that historically characterize Italian employment rights adjudication, even the recent provisions do not seem to fill the gap of the system in order to make it more effective and efficient. After illustrating the judicial and extra-judicial processes, but also administrative and trade union bodies, and the different procedures available to a single worker, the chapter will make some concluding observations with the aim of stimulating a debate on the possibility of involving more trade unions in the process of adjudicating employment rights.