IL MULTICULTURALISMO NEL RAPPORTO DI LAVORO

The research conducted in this doctoral thesis aims to investigate the protection offered by labour law to multicultural workers. The problem is analysed from the angle of the prohibitions of discrimination. It first reconstructs the regulatory framework, at an international, European and Italian level, with particular reference to the analysis of the risk factors directly connected with the phenomenon of multiculturalism (ethnic origin, language, race, religion). It then goes on to study the structure of the prohibitions of discrimination, dwelling on the possible configurability of a right to equal treatment. Having affirmed the existence of such a right, its characteristics are analysed, also in the light of the traditional debates of interpreters and scholars of anti-discrimination law. Subsequently, the study focuses on the search for the limits – internal and external – of the right to equal treatment. With reference to the external limits, in particular, the discussion is articulated by reasoning on the basis of two different declinations of the right to equal treatment, for which the point of balance is sought with respect to other rights worthy of protection: the constitutionally protected rights of third parties and the right to freedom of enterprise under Article 41 of the Italian Constitution. With this in mind, a number of hypotheses are analysed that have been the focus of attention of anti-discrimination law scholars as well as national and supranational courts. In this context, the nature of the obligation of “reasonable accommodation”, provided for by law for discrimination on the grounds of disability, is also reconstructed, and its possible extension to all other hypotheses of discrimination is investigated by way of interpretation.