Corte di Cassazione protects pension rights for seconded workers

The Italian Supreme Court (Corte di Cassazione) has ruled that workers on secondment (distacco) maintain their right to access Extraordinary Wage Guarantee Fund (CIGS) benefits, preventing the social security agency, INPS, from revoking pensions based on these contributions.

In ordinance number 17966 issued on June 4, 2026, the Court rejected INPS's attempt to annul a pension for a worker in the publishing sector. The agency had argued that the figurative contributions accumulated during a period of CIGS were illegitimate because the employee was working at a different company via secondment rather than at the original employer's production unit during the crisis.

The Court clarified that a period of secondment does not sever the legal bond between the worker and their original employer. Consequently, the figurative contributions earned during the suspension of work remain valid for calculating pension seniority, regardless of the worker's physical location at the time of the application.