This paper critically analyses two current perspectives on equality in the field of labour law. According to the first one, re-sort to equality is both useless and superfluous since the latter is an «empty idea», lacking a normative meaning of its own. Within the second perspective discourse on equality is structured ín terms of sharp conflicts of values In this light equality would be in con-flict with a new tendency to give space to the individual and his freedom of choice (starting from freedom of contract).
This paper tríes to show the lasting usefulness of the equality rule as a substantial principle of justification for distributive choic-es. Another objective of this work is to point out the limits of the «rhetoric of simplification», which tends to stress individual free-dom against equality among social groups and to demonstrate the necessity of saving the complexity of legal discourse