Pubblicato in Studi in memoria di Massimo Roccella, a cura di Mariapaola Aimo, Anna Fenoglio, Daniela Izzi, Università di Torino, Edizioni Scientifiche italiane, 2021. La pubblicazione nei WP CSDLE “Massimo D’Antona” è stata previamente autorizzata dall’editore e dalle curatrici del volume

In this essay, the authors reconstruct Massimo Roccella's theses on minimum wage by analyzing the arguments that - in Roccella's opinion - can be adduced in favor of introducing the legal minimum wage in Italy, as is already the case in many other European countries. Subsequently, the authors compare the main arguments (namely the insufficiency of both the “judicial way” to the minimum wage, through the application of Article 36 Const., and the “contractual way”, that is the extension of national collective agreements) with the views for or against the legal minimum wage in the current debate. In front of the many questions raised by the conflicting proposals put forward, the authors wonder if the solution cannot be found in European social law. The answer is no, given that the draft EU Directive, while living the discretion to the Member States as to whether to regulate the minimum wage by law or to entrust collective bargaining, does not solve the problems that the Italian legislature could have to face. However, according to the authors, ¬it may be useful to consider that European company law and investment services regulation opens other routes to guarantee decent work and decent wage (symptomatic examples are the EU Directive 2014/95 about non-financial information and the Proposal of EU Directive on due diligence). At any rate, in the event that the Eu Directive on minimum wage is approved, the way forward seems to be that of the synergy between law and collective bargaining, which, while respecting the prerogatives of trade union autonomy, is able to guarantee all workers an “adequate” minimum wage.