Acceso usuarios
Maria Vittoria Ballestrero
The author reconstructs the debate on equality and differences in labour law starting from the 1994 Umberto Romagnoli’s report on the matter. In that important essay, Romagnoli highlighted the approach of labour law to the issue of equality, emphasizing in particular the difficulty of reconciling the aspiration to equal treatment of workers with the valorization of the subjective differences of each worker. The author re-examines these issues in the light of the evolution undergone by labour law over the last thirty years; in particular she focuses on: the positive results, but also the limits, of anti-discrimination law; the unresolved issue of unjustified unequal treatment resulting from the occupational classifications provided for by collective agreements; finally, the great difference that separates employment, to which labour law protections apply, from self employment, which remains excluded from such protections.
