Italian Labour Inspectors Facing Posted Workers Phenomena

By reflecting the tension among European countries (in particular between Western and Eastern countries), in recent years, the discourse about the posting of workers has become a matter of great political significance and ought to be considered one of the issues on which anti-Europeanism has grown. However, not all countries have been affected by these tensions. For instance, in Italy, the growth of euro-scepticism is due to the belief that the EU would impose financial and political constraints preventing the exercise of national sovereignty as well as to the belief that the EU has imposed the economic and social costs of the refugee crisis onto the countries of first arrival. One possible cause for this difference can be found in the fact that posted workers constitute only a limited segment of the Italian labour market while concerns about domestic dumping, often caused by the irregular employment of local and migrant workers, are growing. The purpose of this essay is to analyse the conditions that lie behind the enforcement gap in Italy without, however, neglecting the systemic problems resulting from the constituent factors of posting itself. In doing so, we focus on the practices of the Italian labour inspectorate, which is the public body responsible for monitoring labour relations, including posting. There are two main conclusions from this research. The first is that, despite its limited presence in the Italian labour market, posting reproduces the same strategies to circumvent regulations and similar problems which one can also observe in other member countries. However, in Italy, the strategies of some firms, such as replacing local workers with posted workers, seem to be a completely new practice arising from the special local circumstances. The second outcome is that, even though Italy has fully transposed the new EU directive thus guaranteeing new control procedures, the national labour inspectors seem unable to provide an effective system of enforcement.