The Court of Appeal in Palermo, Italy, found in favour of a delivery rider who had been suspended from work for joining a trade union that was different to the one that signed the National Collective Agreement (NCA) between the business association Assodelivery and UGL and for refusing to sign a new contract that would be regulated by the new NCA - see here another Etuclex article on the topic of this agreement.
The Court found the company - Social Food - to have committed an act of indirect discrimination, as the only alternative it offered to workers who did not wish to sign the new contract was the immediate termination of their current contract. The judgment further states that this conduct deeply constrained the freedom of the employees to negotiate, ultimately forcing them to accept the new contractual conditions to avoid losing their employment.
Social Food was ordered to pay compensation to the rider for the damage resulting from the unlawful termination which amounted to the wages that he would have received from the date of termination until the natural expiry of the relationship, as well as compensation for non-pecuniary damage.