Evolution, part second: work organization in the digital era.

3. A historical-evolutionary introduction to work organization The worker’s tasks as a paradigm of change: from Ford to Toyota,

3.2. Evolution, part second: work organization in the digital era.

The comparative study of a specific work relationship institute presupposes and imposes in the present global scenario the making of some methodic reflections which take into consideration the highly international contemporary context.

Indeed, we need to stress a first fact of crucial importance, that is that production processes and enterprise activities take place and are contextualized in a necessarily international dimension, represented by the global market.

In this it is possible to highlight a first fundamental critical aspect, represented by the substantial separation of what an authoritative scholar has efficaciously defined as a dichotomy between the spatiality of economics and the limited territoriality of law264.

263_{A paradigmatic representation of the distinction between the Fordist production} model and the Toyota one can be found in the subject authorized to interrupt the production. In the Toyota factories, a switch to stop the assembly line is installed in correspondence of every work-place, so that the workers – expressly and specifically trained for this – can interrupt the assemblage process when a problem arises. Problem which is then solved by the working team in its sum of synergies: this is the philosophy “just in time”, which is used in the various production phases. On the contrary, in the Ford model, the only subject authorized to interrupt the line is the assembly line director; on this aspect see: J.P. WOMACK –D.T.JONES –D.ROOS, op. cit., 65 et seq. See also R. DORE, Bisogna prendere il Giappone sul serio, Bologna, 1991, 23 et seq., with particular regard to the contraposition between “community enterprises”, like Toyota, and “public limited enterprises”, like the companies which follow the Ford model.

264_{R. P}_ESSI_{, La protezione giurisdizionale del lavoro nella dimensione nazionale e}

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Hence, we are facing a «cambio de escenario que sin retórica

puede definirse como cambio de época»265.

A mature reflection in terms of law cannot in fact be separated from the economic and the productive scenario in which the system considered is contextualized. It is a scenario currently characterized by the deep influence of technological innovation on the working of the so- called “on-demand”266 economy.

Multiformity is – with evidence verifiable everyday – one of the typical features of the complex process of globalization, which involves the world scenario, determining epochal transformations and changes, favored by the growing diffusion of information technology and digital processes.

As placed in light by one of the world’s most authoritative labor law scholars, who recently sadly passed away: «el revolucionario cambio

tecnológico da impulso a una sociedad de trabajo en red que genera oportunidades no conocidas antes para el comercio y la inversión»267.

The framework of reference is represented by an (almost) totally globalized market, in which the digital process is an innovation factor of the work relationship paradigms268.

265_{U. R}_OMAGNOLI_{, El Derecho del Trabajo en la era de la globalización, in RDS, 2003,} 24, 11.

266_{See the interesting study Workers on tap, published in The economist, 3-9 January} 2015, 7 et seq.: «The rise of the on-demand economy poses difficult questions for workers, companies and politicians». See L. GALANTINO, I riflessi dell’innovazione

tecnologica sull’inquadramento professionale e sulla struttura retributiva dei lavoratori, in AA.VV., Innovazione tecnologica e professionalità del lavoratore, Padua, 1987, passim.

267_{B. H}_EPPLE_{, Diritto del lavoro, disuguaglianza e commercio globale, cit., 28, quoted} in Spanish in E. COLÀS NEILA, Derechos fundamentales del trabajador en la era

digital: una propuesta metodológica para su eficacia, Albacete, 2012, 41.

268_{On the modernization of work relationships, determined by the diffusion of new} technologies see M. DÉMOULAIN, Nouvelles technologies et droit des relations de

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It is undeniable that the content of the work performance and with it of the wielding of the employer’s power of specification and change of the employees’ tasks, deeply suffer the evolution of the production organization models.

Indeed, the economic crisis together with the technological revolution and the phenomenon of globalization typical of the current global scenario, determine deep changes also to the work performance.

The concrete activities to be carried out by the worker are undergoing a deep structural change, rendering indispensable the more and more frequent – and sometimes meaningful – adoption of changes to the tasks assigned to the worker.

Among the most emblematic phenomena of the epochal changes which are taking place in present-day work relationships, significant is the so-called smart working, based on execution of the «prestazione

lavorativa al di fuori dei locali aziendali, per un orario medio annuale inferiore al 50 per cento dell’orario di lavoro normale, se non diversamente pattuito»269.

4. The object of the work performance: the conceptual

dimension.

After the specifications made above, it is useful to proceed to a linguistic-definition clarification, concerning the object of work obligation.

In fact, in the Italian legal system the expression which has a central role is that of “mansioni del lavoratore”, referring to the

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«insieme di prestazioni lavorative, cioè dei comportamenti concreti e specifici dovuti dal lavoratore in un determinato contesto lavorativo»270.

This concept therefore identifies an organic corpus of concrete activities to perform, which outline the content of the work obligations the worker is asked to fulfil by his/her employer, the “creditor”271.

In other words, it is the tenet institute of the work relationship, placing itself as the central pillar of the regulative discipline: duties are indeed the object of the subordinate worker’s main obligation272.

The Italian labor law juridical system with reference to the content of the work performance, recognizes the absolute centrality of “task”.

As stressed by an authoritative scholar: «mansione (o compito) è

l’unità elementare di un facere»273.

We can well say that tasks indicate the specific object of the work obligation, the sum of operations, tasks and activities the worker is expected to perform and the employer can consequently expect from the worker him/herself.

Edoardo Ghera identifies in tasks «il criterio di determinazione

qualitativa della prestazione dovuta»274.

The importance held by the concept here analyzed is to be considered exactly in the light of the fundamental importance of the

270_{M. B}_ROLLO_{– M. V}_ENDRAMIN_{, op. cit., 512.}

271_{G. G}_IUGNI_{, Mansioni e qualifica, in Enc. dir., Milan, 1975, 25, 545 et seq.}

272_{M. B}_ROLLO_{– M. V}_ENDRAMIN_{, op. cit., 512 et seq.: «le mansioni sono il principale}

“criterio di determinazione qualitativa” della prestazione di lavoroperché identificano il “valore” del lavoro concretamente esigibile, con inevitabili collegamenti e ricadute sul principio di corrispettività di cui all’art. 36 Cost.».

273_{G. G}_IUGNI_{, Mansioni e qualifica, cit., 546.} 274_{E. G}_HERA_{, Diritto del lavoro, Bari, 2006, 96.}

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employee’s tasks, as essential criterion for the concrete identification of the work performance275.

«Le mansioni individuano l’oggetto della prestazione lavorativa e ne qualificano il contenuto sotto il profilo della effettività»276.

On the Spanish conceptual side, we cannot find a word or an expression exactly correspondent to the Italian one. The tendency is to valorize from the conceptual point of view the contentual dimension of the prestación de trabajo.

5. The organization of the worker in Italy: tasks, qualifications

In document Labor law, economics and regulation: Italy and Spain: comparing models in the European framework (Page 158-162)