"Gli amori difficili": contrattazione collettiva e lavoro autonomo

The vulnerability of a part of the self-employed has led to the emergence of protection needs also on a collective level. While there are not any barriers to admitting collective bargaining of working conditions for vulnerable self-employed persons in the Italian system, despite the difficulties of the trade unions, the European competition law represents an obstacle. Indeed, considering that in this context it is adopted a notion of «undertaking» which includes a large part of the self-employed, the collective agreements concluded by unions representative of these workers fall within the agreements prohibited by art. 101 TFEU, as they are considered agreements between undertakings or associations of undertakings. The «misalignment» between the two legal systems is at least partially mitigated by the guidelines approved by the European Commission.