Rapporto di lavoro e traduzione interculturale: una lettura giuridico-interculturale della tutela del lavoratore straniero nel contenzioso disciplinare

The migratory flows that have affected Italy in the last thirty years have slowly but surely imposed a unprecedented social, economic and legal development of the country. This phenomenon has obviously involved the labor area, which over time has had to deal with new needs and the rising of new claims for protection by foreign workers. This phenomenon, at least at first glance, does not seem to have triggered consequences on disciplinary procedure in labor law. Nevertheless, when regarding foreign workers’ conduct, the disciplinary procedure comprises, and unfolds through, manifold discursive practices and procedural steps that unavoidably entail intercultural dynamics. The process of developing both labor law and labor procedural law toward the attunement of their rules with the cultural transformation of national social frameworks resulting from the processes of globalization has already taken its first steps. However, it cannot be said to be complete at all. This is first and foremost because it would require the adoption of innovative tools to make the relevant legal rules understandable to workers from different cultures and, at the same time, translate their cognitive and behavioral habits that, if correctly interpreted, might be worthy of legal protection by the national legal systems of host countries. Unfortunately, this renewed intercultural approach to the universe of the intersubjective relations in the field of labor law is still rather lacking. This essay proposes some preliminary theoretical hints in the hope of paving the way for a broader and deeper study of these issues, to be carried out with an interdisciplinary toolkit and also through field research.