Last January 28th the italian Council of Ministers has approved a draft law containing, among other things, important news on smartworking legislation. Such news are for those workers whom, though not carrying out their work activity in the business, are holders of a standard work contract: the so called “smartworking ”

Quoting the press release of the Government, it consists: “not in a new contractual type, but in a flexible way of carrying out the work employment relationship in reference to places and work-shifts, with the purpose is an innovative regulation of work organization, that may possibly simplify the conciliation between professional life and leisure time.”

So far, there still isn’t a systematic legislation in Italian law for teleworking: it is mainly contained in the c.b.a. of June 9th 2004, therefore, a private source and not a legislative one.

In order to start a teleworking it is mandatory to have a written agreement between the business and the worker. In such agreements: executive arrangements, rest hours, operative conditions for managerial and control powers must be provided. In particular, the power of control has to take place in coherence with art.4 L.300/1970, on the subject of distance monitoring.

Such agreements are possible both fixed time and open ended: if a deadline exists, it is given mean to the parties to retreat before the expiry date only for objective reasons. Whereas, if the agreement is open-ended, the retreat is possible at any moment, but a thirty days obligation persists. Anyway, if the employment relationship is open ended, the parties would be allowed to fix only a determined flexible work period.

The economical and juridical treatment of the worker in teleworking can’t be lower than the one applied to the other workers who carry out the same tasks inside the business places. The employer, anyway, has to provide technological devices and he is in charge for sercurity and the right-working of the operations.

The aim of this measure is to provide a wider regulation of this type of work-execution: nowadays, the resort to technological tools allows to a distance – carry out of the work performance, and to a wider flexibility, a better productivity and a better conciliation between professional life and leisure time.