Subject: News and clarifications on frail workers, mandatory quarantines with active supervision, fiduciary home stays with active supervision, extraordinary leave for employee parents
Updates on this issue are reported, based on regulatory developments also in light of recent Inps clarifications.
1) The protection accorded to private and public sector employees in particularly fragile conditions
Article 26 of Decree No. 18/2020 (so-called Cure Italy) provided, for individuals in possession of the recognition of disability with connotation of gravity (Art. 3, paragraph 3, of Law No. 104/1992) or in the presence of risk conditions determined by immunodepression, outcomes of oncological diseases or the performance of related life-saving therapies, duly certified through recognition of disability (Art. 3, paragraph 1, of Law No. 104/1992), the equalization of the entire period of absence to hospital stay against the presentation of the certificate of illness.
The risk condition, in the absence of the report of recognition of disability referred to in the aforementioned Article 3, paragraph 1, of Law No. 104/1992, can also be attested by the medico-legal bodies operating at the territorially competent Local Health Authorities. The protection in question was granted to workers considered frail, for periods of absence from work between March 17, 2020 and October 15, 2020. An amendment to Decree No. 104/2020 (the so-called August Decree), inserted during the process of converting the text into law, amended the aforementioned Article 26 on fragile workers, providing for these types of workers, as of October 16, 2020 and until December 31, 2020, the exercise of agile work as a rule also "through the assignment to a different task included in the same category or classification area, as defined by the
current collective agreements, or the performance of specific professional training activities, including remotely."
Law No. 178/2020 (the so-called Budget Law for 2021) extended the protection provided for frail workers for the period from January 1, 2021 to February 28, 2021, reaffirming the performance of work in agile mode as a rule, including through the assignment to a different task included in the same category or area of classification, as defined by the collective agreements in force, or the performance of specific professional training activities, including remotely. Equating documented absences of workers considered "frail" to hospital stays becomes a hypothesis provided in any case for all those workers who cannot work in agile mode, not even through assignment to a different task included in the same category or area of classification. Those affected are all employees in the public and private sectors who are in fragile conditions, excluding members of the Separate Management Fund.
2) New from Jan. 01, 2021 for workers in quarantine with active supervision or fiduciary home stay
With regard to the generality of private sector workers placed in quarantine with active surveillance or in fiduciary home stay with active surveillance, for the purposes of the recognition of sickness benefits by Inps, the Budget Law has
eliminated, effective Jan. 1, 2021, the requirement for the attending physician to indicate on the certification "the details of the order that gave rise to the quarantine with active supervision or the trust home stay with active supervision."
previously planned for the year 2020.
3) Extraordinary leave for employed parents
Article 22-bis of Decree-Law No. 137/2020 (the so-called Ristori Decree) inserted when converting the same into law, provided (in favor of parents who are employees), an indemnified leave to be used to abstain from work during the period of suspension of educational activity in attendance for only the second and third classes of secondary schools located in the so-called red zones.
Similar leave has been provided, for the entire national territory, in favor of parents of children with disabilities in a situation of ascertained seriousness (ex. art. 4, Law no. 104/1992), during the period of suspension of teaching activities in attendance in schools of all levels, for which the suspension of teaching activities in attendance has been ordered, or housed in day care centers of an assistance nature for which the closure has been ordered by a measure adopted at the national, local or by individual school facilities.
To obtain the benefit, a special telematic application must be submitted to Inps, which may also cover periods of abstention prior to the date of submission of the application, as long as it relates to periods not prior to November 9, 2020.
Recipients of extraordinary leave are employed parents only.
Therefore, self-employed parents and parents enrolled in the Separate Management Fund are excluded.
Leave may be taken by only one parent or by both, but never at the same time on the same days of suspension of in-person activities; cohabitation of the parent with the child is not required.
In any case, the leave can only be taken if it is not possible to work in agile mode.
Length of leave and amount of compensation