Abstract

The essay analyses social protection clauses laid down in collective agreements and in legislation related to cases in which one service provider took over the performance of a contract from another: such clauses usually imposed on the new provider to re-employ the staff of the previous supplier. In particular the author makes the example of measures to protect the rights of workers contained in Italian Legislative Decree 18/99 (applying Directive 96/67/EC on access to the groundhandling market at Community airports), which has been declared by the ECJ incompatible with Directive 96/67/EC, because they are liable to distort competition on the market for airport services. The author underlines the distinction between a "transfer of an undertaking" and a "transfer of activity" as interpreted by the ECJ and examines service contracts series to which Directive 2001/23 has to be applicable, in consideration of the nature of the transaction concerned.