The so-called work-training contract (contratto di formazione e lavoro) is a fixed-term type of contract that no longer exists in our legal system – following the repeal of the relevant rules by the Fornero Reform (Law 92/2012) – and which had already been transformed, in the private sector, by the Biagi Reform (Legislative Decree 276/2003) into the so-called “insertion contract”.
This type of contract required the employer to provide, in addition to remuneration, specific training. Where the employer failed to comply with the obligations of the work-training contract, Law no. 863 of 19 December 1984, which introduced the contractual type in question, provided that the contract itself would be regarded as open-ended from the date on which the employment relationship was established.
In this regard, the prevailing case law holds that «failure to comply with the training obligations results in the relationship being converted, from the outset, into an open-ended employment relationship, where the breach is objectively significant, taking the form of a total lack of training, both theoretical and practical, or of training that is deficient or inadequate in relation to the objectives set out in the training project and thus incorporated in the contract. In this second case the court must assess the seriousness of the breach on the basis of general principles, declaring the relationship converted in all cases of non-compliance with the training obligations that is not of minor importance and in any event cannot be remedied in time so as nevertheless to allow the young person to be trained within the time set» (See , Court of Cassation, Labour Division, no. 16578/2004).
Well, the judgment under comment does nothing more than conform to the position described above.
In particular, that ruling arose from an appeal by an employer – Telecom Italia – against the judgment by which the Rome Court of Appeal had held that the training actually given to the employee, who had lost at first instance, had been entirely insufficient. Consequently, the second-instance court had declared the employment relationship between the parties to be one of subordinate employment, with conversion of the relationship and its continuation beyond the expiry date, and had finally ordered the company to compensate the employee in an amount equal to the salary due from the formal notice to perform until the end of the third year following the expiry of the contract, plus ancillary amounts and legal costs.
Therefore the Court of Cassation, in giving its reasons for dismissing the appeal in question – noting that the court below had found that the employee had in practice received training of only ten days as against the four weeks planned (three theoretical and the last practical, working alongside an experienced colleague) – concluded that the finding of deficient training, or in any case training inadequate in relation to the individual worker’s insertion project, involves an assessment that necessarily entails a judgment on the significance of the breach, which is reserved to the court on the merits and which, where adequately and correctly reasoned – as it held to be the case here – cannot be challenged before the court of legitimacy
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