Joint responsibility of enterprises for the health and safety of their contractors' workers: recent trends in Italian law

This work analyzes the Italian legislation on the health and safety (H&S) of workers involved in contract and subcontract networks. Under that legislation, employers and other firms in the supply chain are held to a standard of precautionary statutory obligation and joint liability for injuries suffered by workers. This analysis shows that in recent decades, the Italian legal system has strengthened precautionary H&S duties and increased monetary liability for personal injury, shifting those costs to firms higher up the supply chain. Under current law, all permanent or temporary employees and workers benefit from most of the relevant provisions. In an increasing number of cases workplace accidents within the purview of the mandatory public insurance coverage scheme do not relieve firms of liability, which comes as an addition to that scheme and sometimes even replaces it. This analysis also shows that in the legal structure of responsibility for compensation in this specific area of labour law, the traditional fault-based approach is being complemented with a risk-based criterion for assigning liability for workplace accidents, so as to allow for more than a single party to be held responsible. Especially after the H&S reform enacted in Italy in 2008, in essence, occupational safety costs are extended to all firms that profit from work activity entailing worker safety dangers. Despite this regulatory trend, an important limitation remains in place: liability is triggered only if work is carried out in premises belonging to a firm higher up the supply chain. These developments in the law seem to come in reaction to the tendency of businesses to set up multiple legal entities operating within the same physical workplace. Overall, this regulatory system does not seem to set up deterrence or prevention mechanisms against accidents if work is in point of fact subcontracted across multiple workplaces belonging to different firms. In conclusion, although this legislation sets very high safety standards, it is not intended as a response to the occupational H&S challenges posed by the globalization of production and markets. - COMPARATIVE LABOR LAW & POLICY JOURNAL is included in ANVUR’s official ranking list of first class (A) scientific reviews.