EXCELLENCE AT THE SERVICE OF WORKERS

Labor law scholar, lawyer, consultant, Nino Carmine Cafasso talks about his exemplary experience as a professional engaged in employment protection

The global health emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has taken a heavy toll on society around the world, with several key sectors of the economy having been hit the hardest. Companies and, at times, entire industries, like tourism, culture and the food industry have been mercilessly decimated. In this delicate phase, a renewed and stronger need to protect the rights of workers of all types has come to light, in order to overcome the crisis by opening up new possibilities for growth and development. Nino Carmine Cafasso, longstanding Italian professional open to global markets, labor law expert and attorney is at the forefront of a movement to rebuild the strength of a collapsing social fabric, and has made his knowledge, expertise and skills fully available to such an honorable cause. This was especially the case during the course of the first Italian lockdown, when Cafasso worked tirelessly to protect workers and companies, and ensure they would receive the support they needed. This also helped to recreate the previously deteriorated bond between citizens and institutions. In the book “Il lavoro ai tempi del Coronavirus”( Work in the times of the Coronavirus),, Cafasso is able to expertly detail his commitment and dedication. His approach gives the reader a glimpse into the author’s exemplary professional experience, one which undoubtably stands out and serves as a central reference point for all others. Awarded with the prestigious Excellence Awards “for having supported and sustained companies and workers throughout the health emergency”, Cafasso has deservedly crowned the decades-long commitment of his law firm “Cafasso & Figli”(cafasso & Sons). Established in the year 2000, the firm had the ambitious goal of addressing the global market of personnel processing, management, administration and organization services with the most sophisticated telematic techniques, consulting services with high added value, and go beyond the mere management of the employment relationship. A mission undertaken with seriousness, animated by an almost artisanal instinct, Carmine Cafasso, in a

Nino Carmine Cafasso, during the Coronavirus emergency, has made his knowledge, expertise and skills fully available to rebuild the strength of a collapsing social fabric

genuine and excellent expression of Italian knowhow is recognized and admired all over the world. “I have been practicing my profession for 35 years and I’m honored and proud of it” says Cafasso. “The pieces of a successful project are put together year after year, acquiring new resources, qualifying them, training them, creating a cohesive and always well-prepared team. Results are never achieved without great sacrifice and a great organization behind them, without retraining and constant education and without human resources that are equipped with the right tools to be successful. Success means effectiveness, efficiency but above all excellence, and being excellent means being able to relate across the board, without having a hard time when faced with whatsoever kind of situation”. The continuous qualification of a high-value team, which, among other things, has a very high female segment, is combined with an important adoption of innovative technological solutions, which come from Cafasso’s inspiration and research, and in turn has led to very significant results in terms of protecting the rights of workers and of companies.

Coordinating a solid team of trained professionals means establishing a series of efficient processes capable of virtuously setting in stone a synergistic and mutual collaboration, where everyone shares a deep respect for the group as a whole and a strong team spirit, which is the whole system’s winning card. ,. The technological key is certainly one of the fundamental levers capable of allowing Italy to overcome the current critical situation in the best possible way: “today, more than ever, an extensive de-bureaucratization process, that gets rid of a great deal of red tape, is necessary as well as urgent. Today, in the midst of a global pandemic, Italian professionals still have hundreds of documents to process and submit to governmental bodies in order to unlock the relief funds the government has made available. It’s not possible to be in 2021 and still be slaves to filling out forms or have telematics that don’t work. We need to make the most of technology to speed up processes, both for putting together applications as well as for the actual payment of relief funds. We need to implement

“The pieces of a successful project are put together year after year, acquiring new resources, qualifying them, training them, creating a cohesive and always well- prepared team”

targeted innovations where even teleworking can act as a driving force in reorganizing governmental bodies and processes, so as to work in a better flexible manner”. In a state of emergency, even looking at the situation in other European countries, it becomes crucial for companies and workers to see a decline in delays, and a speeding up of bureaucratic procedures: “In Spain the system is much more bureaucratized than in Italy, though, at the same time, on certain issues concerning the focus on the emergency the response time is much quicker. For us in Italy, processes have started to streamline. In Spain, however, they’ve realized that in order to avoid disgruntlement on the part of companies and workers, immediacy had to go through a path characterized by effectiveness and efficiency. We can similarly look to Germany: even with lower mortality rates, the German nation decided to intervene in a more incisive way, choosing the path of programming for the prevention of emergencies. The financial reliefs to workers and companies should always be placed at the front of the line, and never at the back”. Looking overseas, Cafasso adds: “the US is a very different world to the type of world we are accustomed to in Europe. In the States, the government knows the banking details of every citizens and in the first lockdown it was able to provide money to each person without red tape and delays”. Also in Italy there is a need to open up to new development prospects, to imagine new horizons in the wake of an enlightened and current democratic policy, incisive on the present and well projected towards the future.. Assuming that, in this advanced stage of the pandemic, entrepreneurs and workers still have to wait, to be effectively helped, is unthinkable: “The support from the government must not come down like pouring rain. What is needed, instead, is targeted support to those most affected by the crisis. This is the only way we’ll be able to get back on our feet once the crisis is over” Carmine Cafasso concludes, confirming himself once more as the spearhead of Italian professionalism, an essential reference point for for rebuilding Italy’s destiny.