Tendenza e lavoro in Germania e in Italia. Le sfide dell’ordinamento europeo

The article deals with employment relationships in ideologically oriented organisations, with particular attention to religiously oriented ones. The author, taking the cue from a book of Francesco Santoni on this theme, written in 1983, points out continuity and distances in the present scholar debate and case-law. In the first part, after a description of the German experience, the article focuses upon some milestone decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and of the European Court of Justice. These rulings are actually forcing the German system to give up strong prerogatives that it has always granted to religiously oriented organisation in managing labour relations with their employees. The final part of the essay is devoted to the Italian experience, by now dominated by anti-discriminatory law, which is eliminating any peculiarities of labour law in religiously oriented organisations. In conclusion, the author proposes to strike a better balance between collective freedom of religion, enjoyed by religiously oriented organisations, and right not to be discriminated against, to which individual employees in these organisations are entitled.

Sommario: 1. Il contributo di Francesco Santoni allo studio del lavoro nelle organizzazioni di tendenza. – 2. L’esperienza paradigmatica della Germania: i rapporti di lavoro nelle istituzioni gestite dalle confessioni religiose. – 3. L’incontro-scontro con il diritto europeo. – 4. L’esperienza italiana dall’influenza tedesca al diritto antidiscriminatorio europeo: appunti da un viaggio senza bussola. – 5. Qualche riflessione conclusiva e di prospettiva.