Disclosing the Functioning of the Marcora Act Framework Legislation of Italian Worker Takeovers

In 1985, Italian policymakers enacted a law to favour the start-up and consolidation of worker takeovers to preserve employment levels of distressed companies. Law 49/1985, also known as the Marcora Act, provides worker and social cooperatives with financial resources to promote and consolidate worker-takeover operations. Despite its central role, the Marcora Act comes into force in conjunction with insolvency, industrial and social security laws. These seconding norms strengthen the provisions of the Marcora Act, but they also secure workers and companies with additional and independent benefits. The corpus of laws which pertain to the Marcora Act framework is, however, loosely integrated, stratified and rooted in different law codes. To ease the access and interpretation of such legislation, this paper identifies the funding schemes in favour of Italian worker takeovers and the functioning of support mechanisms, and debates the pitfalls of the application of the Marcora Act framework