The Court of Rome legitimizes the dismissal of a graphic designer replaced by artificial intelligence. A decision that opens up serious scenarios for work, unions and youth employment.
A company replaced a graphic designer with an algorithm: a ruling now says it can be done. A precedent that will penalize young people without experience. Let’s hope Maurizio Landinithe leader Maximo of the CGIL, between a pro-PAL procession and a party for the No to the referendum with Elly Schleinfind time to take care of the workers. Yesterday they caught him off guard. They’ve already caught him with the riders in their mouths – for years there’s been a lack of a contract that recognizes the dignity of work for pedal conscripts serving especially the ZTLs where the gauche caviar lazes – and now they’re nailing him to the algorithm which among its many advantages also has that of not having union representation.
The ruling is as new as it is alarming. It was issued on Court of Rome – the ruling is 9135 of 19 November 2025, but it has now been released with the publication of the motivation – which recognized the dismissal of a graphic designer replaced byArtificial intelligencewhich however has not yet been intercepted by union intransigence.
The employee of this company who deals with information security lost her job because due to economic difficulties the company began a restructuring and introduced an AI-based “operator” which made the designer’s work redundant. When faced with the company’s reasons, the judge found nothing to object to: there were real economic-organizational needs that prevented the employee’s internal relocation.
The precedent and the crack in the union
This ruling opens up unprecedented scenarios because it is now a certain fact that artificial intelligence will destroy jobs. To sugarcoat the pill, it is said that new ones will be created or that there will be a reduction in hours, an orientation that is being adopted in some Italian companies such as EssilorLuxottica who experiences the four-day week.
According to IMF estimates, AI will impact 40% of jobs and in Italy a reduction of between a minimum of one million and a maximum of 10.5 million jobs is expected. This ruling from Rome opens a crack in the “great wall” of the CGIL which seems to be perched on the old bargaining, while CISL and UIL have already addressed the problem.
According to some labor law experts, the ruling of the Capitoline court does not give rise to dismissals motivated only by the use of AI because there must still be a “justified reason” to corroborate the legitimacy of the interruption of the employment relationship. Cases are cited of accountants who, once the management software became operational, were relocated, but not sent home. It is the so-called principle of repechage: an employee whose functions are replaced by a “machine” is relocated to a different function, but does not lose either qualification or salary.
However, it is a fig leaf because if the use of AI, as in the case judged in Rome, serves to reduce costs (and it is always like this) and to make production more efficient, a motivation linked to the management balance of the company can be found.
The tears of. come to mind Elsa Fornero who spends a lot of time talking about the generational conflict over pensions, but who, like a good part of the supporters of the Landini line, does little or nothing to suggest to the unions the adaptation of the contractual rules which provide, for example, for continuous training so that the “replenishment” is in fact automatic so that the employee who is replaced by the AI already has a position ready to fill.
Young people in front of the algorithm
It is an issue that especially affects youth work: paradoxically it is the most exposed to competition from AI because it cannot count on the added value of experience. The fact remains that sentence 9135 marks a historic date in its own way: for the first time artificial intelligence takes over a human employee.
Who knows if Maurizio Landini’s No to the separation of the careers of the robes also applies to the separation of those of the blue overalls and the algorithm.
