Ricerc@Sapienza

Job duties, identified by the employment contract, are the employee's core obligation. Article 2103 of the Italian Civil Code regulates job duties, safeguarding worker professionalism while allowing employers to modify job duties within set boundaries. The Italian legal system is characterised by a rigid discipline regarding changes to job duties. While the employer can change job duties unilaterally under certain conditions, agreements that aim to change job duties beyond legal limits are forbidden. This feature is unique to the Italian system. A comparative look at other national systems shows varied approaches. Unlike in Italy, agreed demotion is often legitimate without any restrictions, as in Spain. In England, a worker who refuses the employer's proposal to modify their duties is seriously exposed to the risk of dismissal for redundancy. In Poland, reaching an agreement as the only alternative to dismissal, without limitation on the modifications made, is encouraged. The project aims to analyse, from a comparative perspective, these different regulations. Furthermore, the discipline of job duties is subject to the impact of technological advances and new organisational models, such as digitization and enterprise 4.0, which demand creative skills from workers, alter job activities, and necessitate flexibility. Another objective is to investigate how collective bargaining responds to these changes and evolving skill requirements.