Rules and regulations on holidays

We cannot deal with holidays without quoting two articles:

- art. 36 of the Italian Constitution, which states that the worker has the right to paid holidays every year and cannot renounce to such right (the lack of such due to facts attributable to the employer gives the worker the right to an equivalent reimbursement, called "allowance for holidays not taken");

- art. 2109 of the civil code, establishing that for every year of service each worker has the right to a holiday, possibly all together, in the period established by the employer, taking in consideration the needs of the enterprise and the interests of the employee.

Art. 10 of the Law Decree 66/03 provides that each worker has the right to a period of paid holidays per year, which shall not be less than four weeks, exception made for the hypothesis of better conditions established by the contracts of employment.

Such period, except if differently provided by the collective agreement, shall be of at least two weeks, consecutively if requested by the worker, in the year in which they are accrued (usually from the 1st of January until the 31st of December) and, as regards the remaining two weeks, they shall be taken within the eighteen months following the end of the year in which they are accrued.
If the collective agreement provides for a holiday period over four weeks, this further period, apart from being taken after the afore mentioned eighteen months, can also be monetized.

The employer can decide the period when holidays have to be taken according to the needs of the enterprise and to the worker's interests, for whom the right to holidays not only serves as compensation for the work done, but also satisfies his/her fundamental psychological needs.
The enterpreneur must therefore organise the period of holidays in a way that is useful to the needs of the enterprise, but not unjustifiably oppressive towards the worker (this can take place, for example, in case the holidays divided into small periods that do not allow the worker to take holidays in holiday resorts).

In case of failure to comply to the terms according to which such holidays have to be taken, the rules in force envisage an administrative sanction to be paid by the employer, set forth by Law Decree 213/04, from a minimum of 130 to a maximum of 780 euro for each employee and for each period. With circular letter n. 8 dated 3 March 2005 the Ministry of Labour has specified that the sanction applies only in case of failure to take the minimum period (four weeks) as provided by law and not even in the case of any further period set forth in the collective agreement.