Abstract

The author examines the negative outcomes of the international economic- financial crisis in 2008 on the working relationships, distinguishing among real and "apparent" effects, for which the recession is used as "excuse" to fire employees or reduce their benefits. This phenomenon, fundamentally financial and speculative, does not come from the field of labour and we cannot find solution in it. Labour law can fight the crisis in a traditional way: not by flexibility and deregulation but rather protection by reducing the weight of crisis cost on the weaker part - the workers -, by strengthening the role of the social partners, the implementation of the labour rules and the intervention of the public power.