The National Council of Engineers has submitted a query regarding the periodicity of training updates in the absence of a new State-Regions Agreement (Ministry of Labour and Social Policies, query on October 24, 2024, no. 6). The Commission for queries on health and safety in the workplace has provided its opinion on the training of supervisors. Specifically, the National Council of Engineers asked the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies whether the periodicity of the supervisor’s update training, despite the ongoing lack of publication of the new State-Regions Agreement, should be considered advanced to 2 years, as prescribed by Article 37, paragraph 7-ter of Legislative Decree no. 81/2008 (Thesis A), or (Thesis B) if the indication contained in the 2011 State-Regions Agreement, which provides for a five-year update for supervisors, remains in force and valid.
In this regard, the Commission, in agreement with the argument presented by the query, believes that, based on the legislation (Article 37, Legislative Decree no. 81/2008 and specifically paragraph 7), the novelties introduced by paragraph 7-ter of Article 37 of Legislative Decree no. 81/2008 are subject to the adoption of the new Agreement at the Conference between the State, Regions, and Provinces of Trento and Bolzano.
The Commission recalls in its response to the query the circular of the National Labour Inspectorate (INL) no. 1/2022, which addresses obligations in health and safety training under article 37 of Legislative Decree no. 81/2008 as amended by Law no. 146/2021. The circular states that the replacement of paragraph 7 of article 37, which regulated training obligations for managers and supervisors, with a formulation that provides for “adequate and specific” training according to the agreement to be adopted at the Conference by June 30, 2022, does not negate the training obligation in the meantime. In the absence of the new agreement, managers and supervisors must be trained as already provided for in the existing agreement no. 221 of December 21, 2011 adopted by the Permanent Conference under the first period of paragraph 2 of article 37 of Legislative Decree no. 81/2008 and not affected by the changes introduced by Law no. 146/2021.
The circular also mentions that training obligations for employers, managers, and supervisors will be determined by the new agreement at the Conference between the State, Regions, and the Provinces of Trento and Bolzano. Consequently, the new obligations for these individuals, including the required training for supervisors (in-person training every two years), cannot be considered as useful elements for the adoption of a compulsory measure under Legislative Decree no. 758/1994.
