Worker status in Italy

Article 2094 of the Italian Civil Code identifies as “subordinate work” the work done by a subject under the authority and under the direction of another person, distinguishing it from self-employment or work done on a partnership basis (see below).

Is an employee the worker who obliges himself versus a wage/pay to collaborate with a company performing his own work, intellectual or manual, at the company’s premises and under the direction of the entrepreneur.

The essential characteristics of the employment relationship are cooperation and subordination.

Employees, in fact, are subject to a constraint under which it is for the employer and, on his behalf, to his representatives to issue orders and technical/organizational measures that they consider likely to improve productivity of the company.

Performance of work under an independent contract for services (locatio operis).

According to Article 2222 of the Civil Code, this is a contract under which one party undertakes, for a fee, to perform a task or service without the ties of subordinate status and using predominantly his or her own labour.

The distinguishing feature as compared with work as an employee lies in the non-existence of the ties of subordinate status.

Except in cases of quasi-subordinate status , self-employment is governed not by the protective norms and principles of labour law but by those covering ordinary contracts of exchange (such as sale, hire, etc.), which presuppose the parity, not the inequality, of the contracting parties.