Article 51 – Treatment of illness and injury
Except in the case of a justified impediment, absence due to illness must be reported before the start of working hours on the day on which the absence occurs, to the company representatives designated for this purpose and made known by the company management.
Any continuation of the state of unfitness for duty must be communicated to the company within the normal working hours of the day preceding the day on which the worker should have resumed duty, and must be certified in the manner set out in the following paragraphs.
As of 13 September 2011, employers will have to acquire the certificate of unfitness for work only through the online services made available by INPS. The worker is exempt from sending the certificate, without prejudice to the worker’s obligation to promptly notify the employer of absence due to illness in accordance with the two preceding paragraphs.
The worker will provide the company with the number of the certificate sent electronically by the doctor.
This without prejudice to the relevant provisions of laws and agreements at the inter-confederation level.
The right to job retention ceases if the worker reaches a total of 12 months of absence within a period of 36 consecutive months, even with multiple separate periods of illness. For the purposes of the above calculation, periods of sick leave occurring within the last 36 consecutive months preceding the last day of sick leave in question shall be summed. The provision in the preceding paragraph also applies if the 36 consecutive months have been achieved through several consecutive employment relationships in the sector. For this purpose, upon termination of employment the employer must issue a declaration of liability stating the number of days of illness compensated in previous periods of employment up to a maximum of three years.
Once the job retention limits have been exceeded, the company, at the worker’s request, will grant a leave of absence of no more than four months during which the employment relationship remains suspended for all purposes without pay or any contractual benefit.
This period of leave may only be requested once in the course of employment with the same company.
Once the above limits have expired, if the company dismisses the worker it must pay the severance pay and the indemnity in lieu of notice and anything else that may have accrued.
If the worker is unable to return to work after the above terms, they may terminate their contract of employment with the right only to severance pay. If this does not occur and the company does not dismiss the worker, the relationship remains suspended, except for the accrual of seniority.
For cases of tuberculosis – without prejudice to the provisions of this article – reference is made to the applicable legal provisions.
For sickness and injury treatment, the general rules apply.
Without prejudice to the provisions of Article 5 of Italian Law no. 300 of 20.5.1970 concerning the monitoring of absences due to illness, the parties agree as follows:
- the absent worker is required to be at home available for inspection visits during the hours envisaged by the regulations in force, namely from 10 am to 12 noon and from 5 pm to 7 pm;
- this without prejudice to any documented need to be absent from home for specialist examinations, services and checks, of which the worker shall inform the company in advance.
In the absence of such communications or in the event of a delay beyond the above-mentioned hours, unless there are justified reasons, the absence shall be considered unjustified.
Any change of address during the period of non-occupational illness or injury must be communicated to the company without delay.
At the end of the illness or injury, the worker must report immediately to their usual place of work.
A worker who is absent for control visits during the predetermined time slots forfeits the right to the supplement from the company for the same period for which INPS will not pay the sickness allowance.
The performance of other work, even free of charge, during one’s absence constitutes a serious breach of contract.
If the worker has prevented the timely assessment of the state of illness without a justified medical reason, the worker is obliged to return to the company immediately.
Otherwise the absence will be considered unjustified.
It is understood that the aforesaid regulations will be adjusted in relation to any subsequent legal provisions issued with respect to this subject.
SICKNESS AND INJURY PAY FOR WHITE-COLLAR WORKERS
In the event of interruption of work due to injury or illness that is not caused by gross negligence on the part of the employee, the following treatment shall be accorded to any white-collar worker who is not in the trial period:
- payment, in addition to INPS benefits, of the full wage (salary and contingency) for 5 months, and half wage for the other 7 months. The same rights apply to the white-collar worker during the notice period and until the end of the notice period. The treatment stipulated above shall cease if over the course of several periods of sick leave the worker reaches the maximum limit laid down for sick leave in this Article during 36 consecutive months.
SICKNESS AND INJURY PAY FOR BLUE-COLLAR WORKERS
For absences due to illness the blue-collar worker will be paid:
a) starting from the first working day of absence and up to the 180th day, a supplement to the INPS allowance up to 100% of net global remuneration (Art. 18, last paragraph);
b) from the 181st day to the 270th day 50% of global remuneration.
In the case of work-related injuries that are indemnifiable by INAIL, the worker shall be paid 100% of the global remuneration from the 2nd day until clinical recovery.
1ST NOTE FOR THE RECORD
In cases of supervening inability to perform due to the worker’s physical unfitness, the company will assess the possibility, in relation to its own technical, productive and organisational requirements, of assigning the worker to other tasks that are better suited to their physical condition.
2ND NOTE FOR THE RECORD
The parties shall assign a Joint Committee consisting of 6 members (3 representing the trade unions and 3 representing the employers’ organisations), to be set up by September 2021 within the National Bilateral Body (ONBSI), the task of monitoring the phenomenon of micro-absences due to illness.
The Joint Committee is entrusted with the task of defining an agreement with INPS, the costs of which will be borne by the ONBSI, to acquire data on the phenomenon of absences due to illness in the companies in the sector that apply this CCNL.
In the first application phase, data for the two-year period 2022-2023 will be taken into account, while, for subsequent years, under the agreement with INPS, data on micro-absences due to illness will be considered on an annual basis.
Based on the data provided by INPS, each year the Joint Committee will submit a special report to the parties stipulating this CCNL, which will form the basis for the comparison – that will be concluded for the first time by 2024 – of the actual magnitude of the morbidity phenomenon, with particular attention to “brief” illnesses. In this regard, the Committee will have to acquire the data on the incidence of so-called “brief” illnesses in relation to the total number of days of absence due to illness, and also examine it with respect to environmental, organisational and working conditions.
If the data provided by INPS show a particularly significant incidence of so-called “brief” illnesses (such as, for example, a value of more than 25%) in relation to the total number of days of absence due to illness, the Committee has the task of submitting a proposal to the parties to this CCNL aimed at curbing the phenomenon, which hereby agree to initiate a reform of the discipline referred to in this article at the time of the next contractual renewal.