The article reflects on how the principle of stability of employment relationships applies when the latter is placed in complex organizational contexts such as labor-intensive subcontracting chains. This principle, guaranteed by legal protections against unlawful dismissal, has not only undergone changes as a result of the 2012 and 2015 reforms, but is also affected by the circulation of the enterprise and, in particular, by the influence exerted by the client companies. The latter, in fact, are able, through the inter-company organization they determine, both to defuse, downstream, the effectiveness of protections against unlawful dismissals and, upstream, to circumvent the control over the justification of such measures.