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21 February 2003 5 feasibility studies for telework introduction (Emilia Romagna Region, Campania Region, Asl 3 Foggia, Ersat Cagliari, Catania University)
20 October 2000 Genoa city has its own portal (www.genovanet.it). The portal offers several services like information on traffic, bus timetable, cultural events, metro news etc. Moreover, it gives information about the city history and its famous men and women. Its staff (mainly composed of journalists and ICT experts), work exclusively in teleworking mode.
18 October 2000 The Italian official Gazette (no. 244) contains the ‘Guidelines for PC use‘. This directive comes out five years late compared with the EU policy directive of 1995 and it concerns public and private companies and every job that involves the use of a personal computer.
The desk has to have a clear colour; while using the keyboard the operative's forearms need to lie on the desk and eyes need to be 50-70 centimetres distant from the video. The employer must inform employees about these details
Fines for those not respecting the directive are between three and eight million lire.
20 October 2000 Genoa city has its own portal (www.genovanet.it). The portal offers several services like information on traffic, bus timetable, cultural events, metro news etc. Moreover, it gives information about the city history and its famous men and women. Its staff (mainly composed of journalists and ICT experts), work exclusively in teleworking mode.
18 October 2000 The Italian official Gazette (no. 244) contains the ‘Guidelines for PC use‘. This directive comes out five years late compared with the EU policy directive of 1995 and it concerns public and private companies and every job that involves the use of a personal computer.
The desk has to have a clear colour; while using the keyboard the operative's forearms need to lie on the desk and eyes need to be 50-70 centimetres distant from the video. The employer must inform employees about these details
Fines for those not respecting the directive are between three and eight million lire.
October 2000 The Italian University and Research Ministry has started an 'e-form' programme with the aim of planning, testing and realising e-training classes to ICT. This is done thanks to the creation of a partnership between universities, companies and professional organisations. The first phase of the programme is aims to prepare students or unemployed people for the net economy professions, in order to cover the skill shortage which is affecting Italy.
A survey carried out by Federcomin and Anasin has identified a series of professional roles key to national economic development, together with a profile of the required skills. October 2000 This interesting research may give an explanation on the still poor diffusion of new technologies, and consequently of telework, in Latin countries (Italy, France and Spain). The research has been carried out by Forrester Research BV. The starting point was the low interest that Spanish, Italian and French people have in purchasing goods via the internet. The reasons are: culture and climate. October 2000 During an event at SMAU (Milano 19-23rd October 2000) focused on women and new technologies, it clearly emerged that the World Wide Web represents the true womens' revolution. Women are more able to look for and find work opportunities on the web (also as teleworkers). 209,000 women (over 313,000 new jobs) found a job last year in most cases in the Net Economy. A part of the jobs to which women applied were offered in telework modality.
September 2000 This article does not concern a specific Italian telework action/agreement, but it is a general overview of a brand new trend in international management: working at great distant from the office, often changing location. This category has been named the ‘extreme telecommuter’: managers that have made the world their own office. We are not talking of freelancers, but of people that are working within an employee-employer agreement. Several interviews of this new kind of managers were conducted and, besides the singular cases, big companies are starting to practise the delocalisation of the labour force.
19 September 2000 In the world of net economy, money is not as hard to be found as are human resources. Brodeur Image Time, an Italian public relations company, has started recruiting its employees all over the national territory, allowing people to work from home. Very recently a new office was activated in Genoa, the fourth office after those in Milan (two) and Rome. Milan nowadays is the leading Italian city of the service industry with more than 200,000 companies involved (that is to say 10.6% of the Italian companies operating in this sector). 28 August 2000 The Italian post-University CUOA Foundation has planned a multi media training class for bank employees. This allows the employee access to distance learning thanks to the use of multi media tools and support.
August 2000 Confindustria and the National Confederations have on 3 July 2000 signed an agreement concerning the telecommunications sector. It will unify under a singular ‘umbrella’ all the employees working in the ICT field (including the brand new professions of the net economy). Before this agreement, all the ICT workers were ruled by several sector agreements (engineering industry, commerce, telecommunications). For instance Omnitel (phone services) applied the engineering agreement to its employees, whereas Telecom Italia (phone services) applied that of the telecommunications sector. The contract of the New Economy will cut across all the sectors and group more than 300,000 ICT subordinated workers. TOP27 July 2000 Como Province, Telecom Italia and Galgano Group signed an agreement for the creation of the project ‘Social Net’. The project means to establish a network of social services on-line all over the area of Como province in order to improve social services for the elderly.
10 July 2000 This company telework agreement was signed on 10 July 2000. The programme was launched to improve flexibility within the organisation (arrangements covering flexible hours were involved in this programme). The agreement runs for 36 months (six months' trial included). Training sessions and information services are available to the teleworker. An 'electronic window' will be introduced, in order to allow the exercise of the trade unions rights. A teleworking day is defined as seven hours and 36 minutes in any week. Equipment will be installed at company expense. The safety and security of the data are to be guaranteed by the teleworker. All the other items (wages, leaves, maternity leave, holidays etc.) remain unchanged. A working group was established to monitor the progress of telework in the company.
July 2000 The Board of Directors of Bull Italia decided to introduce telework within the organisation in order to cut fixed costs, in the context of company reorganisation and the closure of the Falconara operation. The telework programme started in January 1998 and was planned to last one year in experimental form. Both domestic and mobile telework were foreseen. Equipment and maintenance were supplied by the company to the employees. A corporate communication network was planned, for specific selling activities, customer services and integration services, supporting e-mail and intranet facilities. Communication with the company involves a ‘callback’ device installed at the company's expense. The security of data and documentation is a priority. All the parties agreed that teleworking should not involve remote employer monitoring or control of workers' activities. Regular meetings and training sessions for employees were planned. Finally, a Work Study Group was established under the agreement, to observe and analyse the programme and to support the teleworkers.
30 June 2000 Software called ‘Livecare’, allows the users and the operators to meet on the web for technical support and customer care in the web call centre.
It is an Italian production. Thanks to Livecare it is possible to create a direct contact between the customer and the company. Livecare was created either for business to business, or for business to consumer use. 29 June 2000 The Italian Government has started the e-government plan. Several actions have been launched. There is an action plan for SMEs wanting to start e-commerce activities (with benefits and tax credits). Another important point is the provision of training classes to ICT for public sector employees (beginning in fall 2000). TOPPublished: 23 June 2000 The Logos company was born in 1979 and was the first Italian company to specialise in commercial and technical translation and to offer an on-line translation service (from 1995). Logos has a net of translators spread all over the word. The company, a real 'first mover' in this sector, has a wide team composed of 180 employees working in an office in Modena (project managers, translators, graphichs, etc. etc) and more than 3,000 freelances working all over the world and linked with the main office thanks to Internet and the web. Logos has recently bought 'Zanfi edition', a specialistin fashion, tourism, gardening and cookery publications, in order to publish on the web those specialised texts in multilingual editions: 'We want to shift to the new economy a heritage of the old economy'. More on-line translators are wanted. 15 June 2000 The draft proposals of the Italian Information Society Forum were published on the web at the address www.palazzochigi.it/fsi/doc_piano/index.htm. This document attempts to define unitary strategies and propose concrete solutions to improve the economic growth and social inclusion using ICTs. The draft is composed of 8 chapters. Chapter 3, entitled 'Employment and Information Society', explores the theme of e-work. In Italy, growth in ICTs was 13,2% in 1999, compared to a 2.2% increase in gross domestic product. The growth of employment in the same sector is satisfactory too (more than the 2% of the total workforce). The net economy implies the birth of 'new professions' and of new organisational modalities. Net work is an answer to the needs of innovation demanded by the net economy. Telework improves competitiveness and offers either a chance of employment to people otherwise excluded from the labour market, or an interesting alternative for all those who are not satisfied with their own occupation. 'Manager resistance' and the uncertainty of regulation are two elements that hinder the diffusion of e-work. There are a number of benefits deriving from telework (eg. cost reduction for the company, and improvement in quality of life for the worker ). Moreover, e-work allows individuals to improve personal skills (within the wider context of long-life training) and enables the creation of virtual companies (facilitating commercial successes). Among the actions that could be undertaken to spread the telework message are initiatives by individuals and promotion by companies and other organisations. Telework is a structural trend which plays an important role in the longer term. This is a national policy document of that gives relevance to e-work and foresees e-work as a key policy action. June 2000 IntrAge is the first Italian portal dedicated to the elderly. The portal aims to put the elderly in touch with each other in order to help them communicate and exchange information. IntrAge organises training centres with computers, where people can meet, exchange opinions while learning how to use Internet thanks to the tutoring of some young people. Breaking news, culture, leisure time, work, social security, music, health, are some of the sections within the portal. TOPSpring 2000 ITEA, together with PAT and Trento Municipality, operates a housing policy making apartments available to the poorer part of population, and equips the apartments with useful informatics devices. This is the first action of its kind at this level. Policies promoting social security and equal opportunities for the disadvantaged are a priority for the programme, and everyone who requests it will have their apartments equipped with ICT, in order to guarantee quality of life for the disadvantaged through telemedecine, remote control of devices, and emergency services. Published: 22 June 2000 Family Info Point, is a programme targeted at women. The info points are information centres where women can get details about family laws and regulation (adoption, maternity leave at Italian and European level and so on). This service is free and the operator working within the info points are trained thanks to EU support . Instruction in the use of ICTs is given in order to help operators cope with remote assistance. Date received: June 2000 This is an outline plan for the implementation of a telework programme. The Italian Ministry of Agriculture has recently introduced telework in its research department, in order to improve the results, the quality of work and the cooperation between the research department, companies and the operators of the 'widened' agricultural system. The specific goals were: The workers targeted by this project are technicians, researchers and research managers, and administrators. The tasks are perfomed either at home, or at a telecentre. Between six and 12 teleworkers are involved in the first phase, increasing to more than 50 for the second. 25 May 2000 This interesting article is about the national Government plan for diffusing the New Economy. Funds are at the disposition of University and Schools. At University, new faculties focusing on the New Economy, are going to be created, whereas at schools PCs are going to be introduced. Moreover all the privates companies investing in ICT will receive financial help from the Government (the same will happen to all those subject who will open telecentres). March 2000 In the national agreement of the Italian banking sector, dated 11 July 1999, telework is taken into account. Telework actions can be started according to the following characteristics/conditions: March 2000 On the 30th March 2000 a collective agreement of 'collaborazione coordinata e continuata' was signed between trade unions of atypical workers and Answers representatives. Answers, a Florence company , is the first Italian company to have set a virtual call center or a 'call center of fourth generation'. Answers s.r.l. supplies services in the professional training domain, in telemarketing and teleselling and in consultancy in outsourcing modalities to companies. The agreement is about the professional assistant activity for Answer, that is to say a task devoted to 'customer service' which can be accomplished (not in subordinated modality) in different places from the official Answer siege, thanks to the use of remoted workstations. The area of compentence is agreed between the agent and the company. Given the several Answers knowledge intensive activities, the work perfomed in telework modality is contemplated. Moreover Answers will take in particular account the cv coming from areas with a high unemployment rate as well as of disadvantaged people. Answers will put at the worker's disposition all the necessary equipment and will grant the union trade rights. From now on it is possible to earn 100.000 itl per day, by answering from home to Answers e-mails. From the most hidden corner of Italy, 1000 people of every age, will run the e-mails of the first Italian Web Call Centre. 22 March 2000 At the beginning the call center was a 'free phone line', a form of developed claim office. The resource had low communication skills and a limited basis of know how. In the 1970s, the call center operator was asked to have a specialised know how in order to offer a 'one call solution' to the customer on line. In the '80/90ties the call center evoluted towards the contact center, in order to offer 'customer oriented' solutions. The back office functions shift towards the front office. The agent is asked to have high communication skills and to be cooperative and able to work under pressure. The actual trend of call center agent is, nowadays, that of becoming the crucial point of problem solving. The agent needs to have technological skills together with the ability of elaborating the information and creating new knowledge. The agent of call center is no longer the blue collar of the service industry, but becomes a Knowledge Worker, able to work with a high degree of autonomy and responsibility. 10-14 March 2000 According to recent surveys, in the next ten years the creation of the half of job places will be created in the services by the companies producers/users of ICT. Therefore promoting the 'knowledge economy' is basic for E.U.. Lately, in Europe the diffusion of the World Wide Web has increased with differences from area to area (in Northern Europe it is definitely more diffused than in Latin Europe), but the gap with the USA remains considerable. High income users of the web are twice superior in number to medium-income users and three times low-income users. Moreover the jobs created by the ICT require high skilled and high qualified personel - which is difficult to be found in the market. In order to avoid a dismatching between the real job market needs and the workforce characteristics and skills, it is essential that EU makes of education and training to ICT a strategic goal of its policy. According to Mrs Anna Diamantapoulou, Commissary to Social Affairs, efforts have to be concentrated on the so-called 'net-generation' (the 81 million European under 25). Firstly, within 2003 every worker will have to possess the basic competences of the IS. Secondly, within 2000 the social partners will have to come to telework agreement at European level. Moreover the public administrations will have to become E-Administrations (tele-services, tele-information) and open to citizens. Companies will have to invest in 'high tech' R&D. TOP6 March 2000 The number of teleworkers are increasing in Italian organisations. In 1997 they were only the 1,7% of the working population, in 1999 they raised up to the 11,7% in the 12% of the Companies practising telework (Federcomin, Anasin, IDC) with a growing rate of the 600% about. This value is a confirmation of the growing of the 'atypical' workers in the Italian Organisations. The most common and numerous teleworkers are the specialist technicians, and the developer technicians. Moreover those two kind of specialists and technicians are the most wanted and searched functions by the companies, because they are considered essential to the core business development. According to the study, in the next 6 months the specialised technicians will be the most searched ones (62,9%) followed by the sale agents (47%). Among the developers, the most required figures are: Among the Internet experts and technicians: The lack between the market needs and the scarce availability of those figures is a given fact. Adopting telework and improving training is strongly suggested to organisations, in order to widen the research range thanks to the characteristic of flexitime and flexispace of telework. February 2000 This text was agreed by Lombardia Region Administrators and Trade Union . The text accepts: [print-only] TOPFebruary 2000 This document indicates the guidelines in order to start up a telework project within the Emilia Romagna County Council. Premises are to be found in the County Law no.6 of the 9th of April 1997. The regional County Council together with the Presidency, can start telework actions and regulate the modalities of realization with guidelines provided for the purpose. The PA can realize teleworking action within the budget at its disposal (no further funds from the Central Government, as already specified in the Bassanini ter). The project foresees an articulation in micro-projects in different fields and the continuous monitoring of the Technical Management on the results achieved. The agreement assumes an appropriate amount dedicated to employers' training. TOPFebruary 2000 This is the text concerning the Collective Decentralized Agreement by which a telework project was agreed in Emilia Romagna County. The project is articulated in several micro-projects. The agreement foresees that the telework action can be started by employer's acceptance only (voluntariness). The project will last one year time. The equipment will be supplied be the employee. The economic conditions remain the same. February 2000 The Ricoh Italian Call Center/Contact Center offers technical assistance on line on the Ricoh products purchased. To have access to this service, the Ricoh customer needs to buy a card (Ricoh assistance card). The call center is in its initial test phase, where 200 Ricoh retailers use the RicohCard. The retailers count 800 technicians on the whole. In the future the RicohCard will be used either by the Technicians either by the customer to have assistance. At the moment the number of inbound calls is of 3000 per month about. 18 February 2000 The project concerns the customer care re-organisation within the Italian Ministry of Finance. This project was prepared by the Ministry itself and proposed to be discussed with the trade unions. The service means to supply information and assistance to the taxpayers in order to speed up the service and to avoid long queuing at the information desk. The service provides information either general (regulation, expiring day), either particular (on the personal files and dossier). Therefore the agents are not simple operators but on line consultants with the following characteristics:
The call center will be located in six Italian cities: Pescara and Venezia (within May 2000), Torino and Cagliari (within June 2000), Roma and Napoli (within September). Every call centre is supposed to have about 90 agents and is run by a manager. The working time is from Monday to Friday from 9 to 18 and on Saturday from 9 to 13. Every agent works 4 hours per day at the call centre, the left hours are dedicated to back office activities (such as professional training, study and problem solving of complex questions that require a put off answer). The agents are screened among those already working within the Ministry offices. A previous experience either in Pluritel (one call solution and basic assistance to the customer) either at the information desk , will be important element for the selection. The training of the agent is articulated in three main fields: law and taxation system, Information and Communication Technologies, communication and relation skills. The call centre managers will receive a specific preparation on leadership and management of human resources, time management and customer satisfaction. TOPJanuary - March 2000 Creating a call center means having clear in mind the goals a Company wants to reach with its realization. The call center allows the Company a faster access to the market as well as to customer care. But to be efficacious, the call center needs to have strongly motivated personnel. Generally the Company that wants to realize a call center, pays attention only to the technological aspect, ignoring all the other aspects. In a call center, the work environment is crucial because, if well organized, allows to reach high levels of productivity and efficiency. Moreover it grants the operator to be flexible and to manage change. Finally it permits to have low managing costs and a best life quality of the workers. Planning a call center is alike planning a village, because the layout of spaces is based on the "village-like system". The organization is team based and every team constitutes a "district". The whole of the districts develops around a center composed of common meeting spaces (the sociality point) in order to stimulate communication and companionship. The comfort and the motivation of call center agents is essential to minimize the personnel turnover, which is very frequent and involves high costs to the Organization. TOPJanuary 2000 This is a collection of short files about the situation of call centres in Italy.The trend is definitely growing. According to Datamonitor (1998) within 2002 the call centres in Italy will be 1350 (in 1997 were 420). The document shows some example: from the 'traditional and historical' case of Rome Nexus Telecenter, to the new ones such as Telcos Naples (managing Lotto on line and counting 500 units within summer 2000). There is also the case of a Sicilian Catholic pastor who spreads the gospel thank to the web. January 2000 Besides the investments in ICT formulated in the financial plan of the Italian Governement for the Y2K, several actions are undertaken at regional/district level in order to develop and improve the new technologies and to promote the Information Society. For instance, the Trieste Municipality will be the first in Italy to introduce a civil network that will link PA, privates companies and citizens. Therefore it will be possible for the citizens to reserve tickets for cultural or sport events, but also to pay fines. Private companies will be able to accomplish to their bureocratic matters thanks to telematic. Either disabled citizens or citizens living far from the center will be facilitated in everyday life and private companies will have no loss of money thanks to telematic. The Italian Defense Ministry has started an informatization process of the young during their military service in order to promote the ICT. The project allows the volunteers and the young in temporary military service to receive professional training and grants them equal opportunities in the informatic know-how necessary for a proper introduction in the business world. This is possible thanks to two key-actions: 10 January 2000 The Italian premier Massimo D'Alema introduced the Government Action Plan for the development of Information Society: The realisation of the Action Plan is the result of researchers and experts, who gave their contribution to the realisation of the document. TOP10 January 2000 The Italian Cabinet named Senator Passigli Under-secretary to the Technological Innovation and Internet. The priorities indicated by Mr Passigli were "education and training of the young "," the development and regulation of e-commerce "," Internet regulation and Internet costs. Moreover, he showed the need of promoting technological innovation in the country by training actions and by checking and improving the situation in public and private sector. This is an important signal of the Italian Government. Passigli's nomination recognises that the strategical value of the ICT is essential for economic development. A "Minister for Internet" is a fundamental step of Institutions in order to promote, develop and improve ICT and their use in the country. TOPSeptember-December 1999 The following articles are published In this issue : Autumn 1999 First pilot telework training and tutoring programme for telework actions and net-work within the Italian local PA. The goal of the programme is that of individuating the teleworkable tasks and that of proposing operative models in order to realise telework actions. The training days are targeted to manager and executives of the personnel, information systems and organisation department. The first training stage concerns the introduction and study of the juridical, technological and organisational aspects linked to telework introduction in structures. The second training stage supplies the know on how to develop a telework project and gives the elements to prepare a project. The third training stage, foresees the elaboration and presentation of the projects with the help of experts and tutors. The duration of the project is of 10 days classes and 2-3 months on the job training. Autumn 1999 The "Telework and Local Development" Project - started on March 16, 1998 with a 30 months duration - was submitted by the Municipality of Naples within the framework of the ADAPT Community Initiative. It was approved and funded for a total amount of round 2 MECU, a share of which (round 15%) co-funded by a group of organisations and enterprises participating in its development. The project is aimed to achieve the following general targets: The project is based upon three major components: research (to design the model), training and implementation/experimentation, along with a widespread dissemination of the results. 08 December 1999 Paolo Berro lives in Castelfranco Veneto and is 23-year old. Before the 2nd of May 1998 he was a ski champion. That day, not distant from home a car accident. One vertebra out of joint and another broken. One year and more spent in the hospital "A miracle if he survives" doctors said. Little by little Paolo improved, even though he was blocked in a wheel chair with difficulties in speaking. One day they put him in front of Dragon Dictate, a voice recognition program: the program needs vocal inputs to work. Paolo succeeds, he makes the computer working and he is free to move in the web. In the hospital he realizes his first web page and than the electronic file of the hospital ward. Then he realizes the web pages of friends, he performs researches on the web. Nowadays Fabio attends the 3rd year of engineering at Turin Politecnico, thanks to lessons via internet and he is the first Italian student. Moreover he acts as a consultant for Companies asking for web site construction or Paolo's projects in order to help the disabled. Paolo is now designing a wheel chair patent pending. " I had a lot thanks to Internet, if I had the accident 5 years ago, it would be totally different". July 1999 This report was realised in the occasion of the conclusion of the second phase of Teknova intervention and consultant action to the Lombardia Region, in order to plan, realise and monitor the results of the telework action started in the Lombardia region structure. The project was articulated in three main lines of action: The functions involved in the experimentation were : June 1999 The TERSA project moves from the idea that teleworking actions can be started in order to improve the results of research. In the specific field of scientific research and of the cooperation research-companies in the agricultural domain, a teleworking action could be particularly efficacious in supporting the Ministry to coordinate the researches lead in cooperation with Universities, CNR, ENEA etc. The personnel involved in this project are account managers, reasearchers, research coordinators. Duration of the project: one year. The regulation used, is the one regulating the services out of the office and contemplates either the insurance, either the verification of results. April 1999 This article is by an Italian Desk Agent at IBM Glasgow Call Centre. In this 'General Service Centre' 350 agents work, from 14 different countries - the calls are more than 50,000 per day. The work environment is characterized by several 'national' areas. Every area has a 'national' banner. In the specific case of the Italian desk the banner shows the Pisa tower. The work in the call centre might be sometimes stressful, but there is a good integration between all the call center agents, thanks to the parties organized by IBM and to an electronic newspaper and to sport exhibition (above all soccer). The dress code is quite strict and the dress down day is the last Friday of the month. After the first six month, the call center agent has her salary revised and a career plan within IBM (or within Manpower which is the body rental company - the employee) is studied. The experience of working in this call cetre is extremely positive for this 27-year old Italian girl. March 1999 According to Italian regulation, Private Organizations and Public Structures must take on employees with handicaps in a share proportionned to the overall number of workers. The disabled employees, working from home in a teleworking modality, to whom the employer commits a task continuous in time and corresponding to the normal working time (according to discipline art. 11, second paragraph, law 18 december 1973, n.877 and to the discipline established by the national collective agreement related to the disabled working for the company from home and/or in teleworking modality) can be counted in the reserved share. 8 March 1999 The article number 4 of the law "Bassanini ter" of 16 June 1998 mentions and allows telework to be introduced in Italian public authorities (PA)., within the Administration budget disposal (no additional funds from the Government will support PA telework initiatives). The Italian specific regulation in PA (Presidential Decree 8 March 1999 no.70) comes from the above mentioned article and gives some guidelines to PA for the introduction of telework in their structure. "…In order to rationalise the work organisation…. Italian PA can have recourse to telework…". This text gives a definition of telework, identifies telework projects, work environment/safety conditions, specifies the economic modalities and the control on the results achieved TOPJanuary 1999 The report examines costs and benefits associated with teleworking especially for local authorities. The specific interests of local government are addressed in relation to: service delivery, planning, economic development etc. TOP23 June 1998 Since telework is becoming more and more common in Italian business world, private companies are getting more and more interested in a regulation of this new form of work organisation. The regulation is necessary in order to spread and improve subordinated telework, but the regulation action must not act as a limititative factor of the individual and of the collective autonomy. The premises of this document contain some comments to the telework proposal of law in private companies liying in the Senato. It is strongly suggested that regulation should encourage telework practice within a regulating frame of reference but not limitating individual and collective autonomy 1997 The introduction of teleworking presents major new challenges to human resources managers, trade unions and others involved in the development of good employment practices. The use of new information technology and telecommunications to support work at a distance, places in question many of the traditional assumptions underlying management practices and collective agreements. In drawing up the guidelines for teleworking best practice, a special attention is paid to issues of equality and ensuring that teleworking is a family-friendly form of employment. Five main types of teleworking are identified in this research and features of good practices are identified ( summarised in :training schemes, information provisions, labour market initiatives, enterprise support and the provision of social infrastructure) The study which gave rise to the publication of these guidelines, formed part of a one-year research project on teleworking and gender, partially funded by the Equal Opportunities Unit of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Employment, Industrial Relations and Social Affairs and supported by other Associations (Analytica UK, ADA Greece, TNO Netherlands, FPE Sweden) TOP15 January 2000 When a teleworker goes to Court… a case of court territorial jurisdiction if a teleworker/employee brings an action against the employer. As far as "typical" work forms are concerned, the Italian law states that the employee, in case that he brings an action against his employer, can choose the most suitable Court for him : the Court where the employment took place, the Court where the Company has its main office or the Court where the Company has a branch office where the employee actually works ( the employee normally chooses the court closest to his house). But in case of "atypical" forms of work, such as home teleworking, which is the competent court? According to a sentence of the Italian Supreme Court of Appeal (n.11586 of the 14/10/99), in the specific case of home teleworking, the place where the employee accomplishes his task cannot be considered as a "branch office" of the company itself. In this way the Supreme Court has confirmed that the place where the working tasks are accomplished is relevant only if the company has a branch office in that place (the employee's home is not to be considered in this way). TOP2000 The subject of the whole document concerns: "Employment, Economic Reforms and Social Cohesion towards a Europe based on innovation and knowledge". Innovation and knowledge are increasingly becoming the decisive source also the main source of difference between nations and organisations for redefining European competitiveness and creating new business chances, but also new risks of social exclusion. All Western societies are knowledge-based. What is new is that the information and technologies are changing the way in which knowledge is accumulated. Moreover, knowledge is being built into equipment, products and services. Knowledge is becoming the raw material of work. Regarding the demand for knowledge, the European policy for an information and knowledge-based society must speed up the diffusion in companies of information technologies linked to flexible production systems, e-commerce, teleworking, telemedicine and also of information knowledge-management tools. Moreover it has to improve training for workers to help them to cope with information technology by adopting a reference frame of basic skills, setting up a European network of open learning centres and to provide guidance and educational and professional support in order to allow European citizens to adjust to the new requirements of information and knowledge-based society with a particular attention to those categories in danger of serious social exclusion. The guidelines of the document recognise and affirm that the knowledge-economy is a new strategic goal for Europe. This document is the follow-up of President Prodi's concept of "e-Europe". TOP16 June 1998 The article n.4 of the so-called law "Bassanini ter", allows the introduction of telework in P.A.. : " In order to rationalize the work organisation and to cut down costs thanks to a more flexible utilization of human resources, Italian public administrations can use forms of work at distance. To realise this, they can install, within the Administration budget disposal, equipment and telematic lines…and they can authorise their employees to work (at the same economic conditions) in a place different from the usual workplace… TOP22 June 1999 The Labor Commission of Italian Senate approved the Unified Bill for telework in Private Companies. The bill contains the guidelines for introducing and promoting telework in private Companies and contemplates the teleworker's right to sociality, distance control, off-shore telework, trade-union rights via ICT, health and safety conditions etc.. The Bill has been passed for discussion to the Plenary Session and, once approved, it will be transmitted to the Chamber of Deputies where two other Projects are waiting. At present (February 2000), it is not possible to foresee when the Bill comes into effect. TOP21 July 1999 The agreement on telework between Italian Trade Unions and the Agency for Public Employees Negotiation was signed up the 21st July 1999. The agreement contemplates the duration and targets of telework projects in public authorities (PA), teleworker's rights and duties, workplace etc. The agreement was undersigned by the representatives of the main Italian Trade Union Confederations. TOPMiscellaneous Documents: |
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