With the increase in infections from Covid, the extension of measures on smart working for fragile workers and for parents of minors under 14 appears: the Government - according to what is learned from the Ministry of Labor - is thinking about the possibility of including milleproroghe an extension of at least three months of the rules that allow fragile workers to "normally" carry out work in agile mode and parents to ask for smart working in the event that the job allows agile working provided the other parent does not is already at home because out of work or with some type of social shock absorber.
The measure should be discussed in one of the next CDMs but it is likely that the rules in force will be extended until 31 December 2022 without inserting the
equivalent to hospitalization for the absence of the fragile worker for whom it is not possible to work in agile mode.
A meeting of the Agile Work Observatory is scheduled for December 15 to assess the situation.
On the subject there is also an openness from the Minister of Public Administration, Paolo Zangrillo who has started discussions with Ministers Calderone and Schillaci.
If at the beginning of the pandemic for these workers the absence of work due to fragility was equated to hospitalization, this measure was not already extended with the Aiuti bis decree.
"We are in favor of the extension - said the confederal secretary of the UIL Ivana Veronese - but the part on those whose activities cannot be remotely removed is missing".
The new extension should also concern access to smart working for parents of children under 14 and the simplification of communications.
Parents of a child under the age of 14 may therefore still be entitled to work in agile mode as long as there is no other parent benefiting from income support or a non-working parent in the family unit.
But in this case, both for public and private work, the parent's activity must be able to be made smart.
So, for example, the nurse or the saleswoman with children under 14 will not be able to ask the employer for the agile mode.
As regards the simplification of communications with the extension, it should still be possible for the company to communicate electronically on personnel in smart.
It is not yet clear whether it will still be possible for the company to make a unilateral decision on which workers to put in smart.
On the other hand, it is possible that the extension on this will not intervene and that from January the individual agreement for smart working will still be mandatory as required by the law on smart working of 2017 (81) and confirmed by the protocol of December 2021.
