APPRENTICESHIP, CONTRACT OF. - The apprenticeship contract (or tirocinio) is for the most part found in manual and technical work, but it can also exist for clerical work, save for exclusions established by laws or, on a debatable legal basis, by collective agreements. Its object is the teaching of a trade to a young person (the apprentice) by the head of a workshop or firm (who therefore ought to be paid rather than to pay).
But today the apprentice is commonly considered a subordinate worker, albeit in a special position. In effect, the learning of the trade remains the principal purpose of the contract (unlike the relationship of "garzonato", in which a worker is assigned the most modest menial tasks with no intention of further qualification), but the apprentice is inserted into the role of the organization, of the firm, is bound by the firm's discipline and receives for the most part, even if modest, remuneration (unlike, usually, voluntary trainees in professional offices), because it is presumed that the activity performed proves of some utility to the firm. The civil code likewise configures the tirocinio as a species of the genus "subordinate labour" and imposes certain obligations: a) that the period of tirocinio may not exceed the limits established by collective sources and by custom; b) that the remuneration not be a piece-rate wage, which presupposes a capacity that the apprentice does not yet have but tends instead to acquire through training; c) that the employer must allow the apprentice to attend courses for vocational training (so-called "presapprendistato"); d) that upon termination of the relationship an attestation of the completed tirocinio must be given to the apprentice. Special legislation and collective agreements must better adapt the tirocinio to the various requirements of the types of industry, of places and of time, according to the most keenly felt present needs, and must enable artisan workshops, as since the age of the medieval guilds of the arts, to be schools for skilled workers. In recent times provision has also been made to institute courses for the qualification, further training and vocational retraining of unemployed workers, with the aim of rapidly changing or increasing their technical capacities, adapting them to the necessities of production, of the internal labour market and to the possibilities of emigration, thereby increasing the possibility of the maximum and most profitable employment of the labour force.
As a general principle, tutors and those who teach a trade or an art are responsible for the damage caused by the unlawful act of their pupil and apprentice during the time in which he is under their supervision, unless they prove that they could not have prevented the act.
Bibliography3 works
Ferruccio Pergolesi