Italy Update: The wage supplementation scheme replaces the daily sickness allowance

With Ordinance no. 16382 of 10 June 2021, the Supreme Court of Cassation has recalled a consolidated orientation which provides that the reference to the wage supplementation fund, which replaces the daily sickness allowance, should not be understood only as a reference to the extraordinary wage supplementation fund, but also to the ordinary wage supplementation fund, “when the ordinary wage supplementation fund refers to a hypothesis of suspension of production activity and not merely a reduction in working hours: since there is a complete identity of rationale, so as to allow the extension to the latter hypothesis of the rule of substitution of the wage supplement to the daily sick pay, as well as any contractual supplement (Cass. 13 June 1987, no. 5219)”.

Therefore, the court of legitimacy reiterated that, in the event of a zero-hour suspension of work with recourse to the social security system (CIGO or CIGS), the redundancy payment takes precedence over the sick pay, with the consequent cancellation of the contractual supplement payable by the employer.

In the present case, an employee had requested that the Italian Supreme Court censure the trial judge’s action in that he had failed to examine decisive facts relating to her placement on CIGS during the period of sick leave.

The Court dismissed the appeal on the grounds that the appellant had not fulfilled its burden of alleging that facts that the trial judge allegedly failed to examine had been submitted to the trial judge.