Does labour law still need subordination? Answering to LLI

Abstract

The Author believes that the dichotomy "subordination/autonomy" should be preserved, given the conditions that its internal balances get completely redesigned, starting from the adoption of a broader notion of subordination designed around the concept of dependence of the work performance. This tendency is present in the most recent labour legislation, projected towards a broader notion of dependence, whose boundaries are still undefined. In this context, case law plays an important role in conceptual frameworks. On the other hand, the economic dependence “formula” may vary according to the terms of the comparison, exposing to the risk of protecting situations that do not deserve protection and sacrificing specific interests and values that instead do deserve protection. Maintaining a strong ideological-political value, the formula of economic dependence risks being exposed to individualised interpretations. By means of a broader concept of subordination it is instead possible to continue to achieve the purpose of labour law: the compensation of the contractual imbalance between the parties, albeit within a framework in which legislative interventions aimed at guaranteeing protection in a solidarity-based and universalistic logic are increasingly frequent.