Under current Italian law, private security work throughout the country can only be carried out by those contractors based in Italy, owned by Italians and which have been granted a special licence. In addition, only Italian nationals possessing such a licence may be employed as security guards.
The situation – akin to that prevailing in Portugal ('EC takes Portugal to task over security firms 'ban'', News, SMT, May 2001) – has sparked the European Commission (EC) into action. The threat hanging over the Italian Government if it opts to ignore the ruling is substantial, the European Court of Justice having the power to levy massive, recurring fines of up to 100,000 Euros on a daily basis.
At present, the Court has dismissed Italy's defence that security guards and companies have been exempt from these 'liberalisation rules' because they "exercised official authority". Whatever their duties, the Court ruled that this doesn't include private employment in any form.
By imposing its restrictions, claimed the Court, Italy has so far "failed to fulfil its obligations" under EU law, and has been ordered to pay the costs of the case.
A group of security guards had been assigned to work in Belgium by a French company. When a Belgian social law inspector asked one of the guards to produce a wage slip, it showed that he was being paid well below the levels required under the host nation's collective labour agreement for security officers operating in the private sector.
The case was taken to a Belgian industrial tribunal, where the employer claimed that the particular circumstances faced by the contractor in a border area were not subject to the European Commission's Job Posting Directive. Assignments were of a short duration, and the post holders enjoyed a more favourable income tax and welfare regime than they had in France.
The court's overall ruling was that national authorities have a duty to define – well in advance – "whether, and if so to what extent, the application of national rules imposing a minimum wage on such an undertaking is necessary and proportionate in order to ensure the protection of the workers concerned."
References to net pay factors in this case could have long-lasting implications.
Source
SMT