The problem of registering into unemployment lists while awaiting for residence papers renewal to come is spread out through out Italian territory.
The interested person writed “the receit does not explain anything. Nowhere it says why renewal was asked and the receit does not show the picture of its own holder”.
Understanding the reasons of papers renewal is very difficult, therefore it becomes almost impossible to see whether conditions that allow to the enrolment exist or not.
Apart from this real difficulty many offices refuse to do what they should.
Law is quite clear. Consolidated act art. 22 paragraph 12 states that workers, while awaiting for residence papers renewal to come, have the right to keep working, to change job and to register into unemployment lists in order to look for a new employment.
Health care/card – Immigration consolidated act art. 34 specifically says that workers who are awaiting for papers renewal or are being unemployed anyway hold the right to be enrolled to the National Health care Services and therefore they have the right to all services and to issueing of health care card.
From a strctly legal point of view nothing more can be explained.
Advice
In case the receit that police headquarters release when applying for residence papers renewal does not say anything on the reason of the same renewal we suggest that interested people should take with them additional documents. These should prove why they asked for papers renewal and they should also prove that they have the right to be registered into unemployment lists and to health card.
Some police headquarters release simple notes which do not say anything about the person who applied for renewal. It sometimes happens that police headquarters only release a card. This card simply says which day the person needs to come back, its aim is to simply prove that the worker activated him/herself in order to have papers renewed.
We therefore suggest everyone to keep copy of all documents and of the expired residence permit. Anyone this can be also proved via ‘self-certification’. In fact police headquarters have this person’s documents and self-certification should be possible.
In other words, migrant workers can validly self-certificate under their own responsability that:
. they formally applied for subordinated work residence papers renewal (the date must be the same stated on the receit).
. they had residence papers, which expired and were applied to for renewal.
In this way a worker proves and show what kind of permit they had and what kind of renewal he/she applied to. This also proves that this person owns the right to be registered into unemployment lists and to health care card.
The question says that many offices refer lo a ministry memorandum (we suppose a ministry of labour memorandum). This memorandum should state that the renewal receit would only be valid in order to keep being registered into unemployment lists but it would not allow to new enrolments.
We have never heard about such a memorandum and we do not know when it was issued (did it came before or after Bossi-Fini law enforcement?).
Even if such a memorandum exists, rember that the interpretation this memorandum establishes is not necessarily what law states.
It is also very important to keep in mind that it was Bossi-Fini law that changed Consolidated act art. 22. Art. 22 now states that workers have the right to keep on working while awaiting for papers renewal.
If working is allowed, enrolling unemployment lists should be possible as well. It would otherwise be senseless.
People needn’t passively accept everything they are told at offices or desks, as many times explained, it is not always the truth.
We can only suggest that it might be better to appeal against such denials apart from actually having offices recognizing people’s rights.
To appeal against such behaviour, citizens have to have offices release a written denial which can prove that they refused rights and of coarse can be taken to court.
It would be interesting to know how offices ariound the territory apply law, we may try to contact Labour departments in order to understand how they generally behave.
We invite everyone to signal similar to this situations to help to oppose ministry memorandum which do not respect law.