Serious illnesses and disabilities, employment protection and inequalities
The main road. National demonstration on 7 October in the name of the Constitution born from the Resistance
23 September 2023
Ente Pro Loco Italiane convenes the States General of Social Affairs
13 October 2023
Égalité collects the report of two women who have experienced oncological diseases and received job protection - as public employees - unknown to the vast community of freelancers and 'freelance' workers.
Unacceptable inequalities that the European legislator like the Italian one should mitigate. The professional associations and their respective social security funds could in turn take action to concretely support members who experience such difficulties.
1) Serious illnesses, forced and prolonged abstention from work
In case of serious pathologies which involve forced and prolonged abstention from work, public employees are put in a position to face the treatment process, thanks to the contractual protections mentioned in the following paragraph.
Such a possibility it is instead denied to freelancers who often find themselves forced to choose whether to seek treatment or not or in any case to aggravate their apprehension about their state of health with stress about their economic situation, without respite.
2) Public employees, contractual protections
Collective bargaining, in the public and private sectors, is subject to various variables. Below are some notes on the protections granted to public employees suffering from serious pathologies that require life-saving therapies.
2.1) Guarantees recognized for any illness
Job retention for a period of 18 months in the three-year period. During this period:
– the first 9 months of absence are fully paid,
– in the following 3 months the salary is reduced by 10%,
– in the last 6 months the salary is reduced by 50%,
A follow, the right to a further period of job retention for another 18 months without pay.
2.2) Additional protections for employees suffering from serious illnesses
The days of absence for illness resulting from hospitalization or day-hospital, as well as days of absence due to life-saving therapies (including chemotherapy) do not affect the retention period of the position referred to in the previous paragraph 2.1 and are fully paid.
2.3) Sector-specific protections
Specific protections further are granted to public employees who work in certain sectors. Some examples:
– exclusion from the calculation of the period of retention of the job – for employees suffering from serious pathologies referred to in paragraph 2.2 – also of the days of absence due to the consequences or effects of life-saving therapies (School, University and Area VII-university sectors and research),
– retroactive effect of the benefits referred to in paragraph 2.2, starting from the date of submission of the application for recognition of the serious pathology (Health sector and related management areas III and IV),
– benefits for particular needs linked to therapies or specialist visits, through a suitable organization of working hours for those affected by the particular pathologies referred to in paragraph 2.2 (Ministries, Tax Agencies, Presidency of the Council of Ministers, non-public public bodies economic, Healthcare. This regulation also applies to management Areas III and IV - National Health Service - as only for them is there a daily/weekly working time).
3) Freelancers, VAT numbers and 'freelancers'
The collective imagination associates the category of 'freelancers' with the historically wealthier professions, from notaries to lawyers, accountants, engineers and architects, doctors and dentists. Ignoring both the fact that some of these categories experience overcrowding and/or lack of work and income - even more so in the permacrisis that Italy is experiencing, now aggravated by double-zero inflation - and the existence of a much broader group of professions, compared to those mentioned.
Just think to the thousands of agronomists and agrotechnicians, forestry doctors, surveyors and accountants, labor consultants who have so far worked on the management of procedures for European aid in the agricultural and agri-food sectors and will soon find themselves out of work due to a 'Coldiretti' abuse of power Ministry of Agriculture. (1) Rather than veterinarians often employed in pet 'clinics' at salaries lower than those of general workers.
Add to this then the victims of the 'jobs act' and of the European liberal liberal reforms, the 'freelancers' of the 'gig economy', the artisans and the 'self-entrepreneurs', the publicists and the 'riders'. The universe of VAT numbers, even simplified ones, and of those who are exempted due to lack of income who, among other things - like everyone else in various regions of Italy - cannot even trust in public healthcare thanks to the drastic cuts it has undergone in recent decades, in defiance of the proclamations of the United Nations. (2)
4) Serious illnesses, disabilities and work. Abysmal inequalities
Serious illnesses and disabilities they cause individual and family disasters that go far beyond the contingent economic aspect. Depending on the job (employee, public and private, or 'self-employed') and the context (illness and/or professional injury or not), the abuse of inequalities has no limits.
Insurance more or less large, or non-existent, to cover treatment and rehabilitation costs can have an even more significant impact on maintaining one's job. This is followed by pensions, which are lower than the old citizen's income for the less 'fortunate' (3,4).
Assistance to people with disabilities, in turn, in Italy there is an absolute inequality between the victims of accidents and illnesses at work - protected by INAIL, with wide coverage on medical devices and aids necessary for a dignified life, among the many distinctive 'benefits' (5) – and all the others.
5) Provisional conclusions
The diseases – more or less serious, burdensome and disabling – and the even invisible disabilities that can result are possible events in every phase of the life of every human being, from birth to old age (6,7), regardless of class and employment status .
Discrimination and inequalities nevertheless persist, perhaps even worsening, without even registering any political request or initiative of any kind in favor of the weakest and their loved ones, or rather 'caregivers'. (8) Until when?
Dario Dongo
Note
(1) Dario Dongo. AGEA and MASAF 'Coldiretti'. The suppression of freelancers in agriculture. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade).
(2) Dario Dongo, Sabrina Bergamini. Universal health coverage, UN declaration. Egalité. 22.1.20
(3) Dario Dongo. Civil disability, one million a month. What rights? Egalité. 24.6.20
(4) Dario Dongo. 1 million per month, the INPS abuse of invalidity pensions. Egalité. 27.7.20
(5) Dario Dongo. Disability, aids and subsidies. Petition. Egalité. 20.11.22
(6) Dario Dongo. School inclusion of pupils with disabilities, a mirage in Italy. Egalité. 7.5.23
(7) Dario Dongo. Italy, a population of elderly and disabled people. ISTAT Report 2022. https://www.egalite.org/italia-un-popolo-di-anziani-e-disabili-rappello-istat-2022/ Égalité. 17.4.23
(8) Dario Dongo. If this is a state. Severe disabilities and family caregivers. Egalité. 31.12.19
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
