The Powers of the Public Employer in Franco-Italian Comparative Law

This research consists in a comparison between the legal instruments of human resource management in the French and Italian public service sector. The objective is to evaluate their efficacy and uncover the main problems linked to their implementation.

In the Italian public service sector, the manager is assimilated to the employer found in private firms. The link between the public servant and the administration is first regulated by a specific law, then by collective bargaining and labour law.

In the French system, labour law isn't applied to the public service sector. However, labour law has an influence on it, and vice versa.

Collective bargaining doesn't have any formal rule because the civil servant must accept conditions imposed by the administration.

Despite appearances, throughout their evolution the two systems seem to increasingly resemble each other, particularly in the realm of human resource management legal instruments, the use of temporary jobs and the rule of collective bargaining.

It seems that flexibility in human resource management isn't necessarily associated to the nature - public, private or mixed - of the link between the public servant and the administration. The choice between unilateralism and negotiation, administrative law and labour doesn't matter so much.

Though French statute law is flexible, there are some political and administrative customs which are damaging.

In both Italy and France, public administrations do not need to ignore - respectively - privatisation and statute law in order to become more effective.