A Dundee University graduate who has been fighting against discrimination in Italian universities has pleaded for EU help against a move by the Berlusconi government to wipe the legal rights of foreign workers from the statute book.
David Petrie, who teaches English at Verona University, is urging support from MEPs in Brussels after the Italian government authorised the scrapping of rights for foreign teaching staff, rather than comply with EU rules on equal treatment.
Mr Petrie said the “Gelmini reform” will strip non-Italian lecturers working in Italian universities of “basic civil rights.” The change removes the right to equal treatment, defence, due process of law and the right to a judicial hearing on the merits of any legal claim.
Mr Petrie has been battling for years for equal rights for non-Italian teaching staff known as lettori whose pay and conditions are inferior to those of their Italian counterparts. They don’t enjoy the same wages, pension plans and rewards for length of service, even though they have a heavier workload.
Italian university lecturers teach for two hours and 15 minutes per week for 30 weeks of the year. Most of the teaching is done by the lettori, like Mr Petrie, who put in about 12 hours a week in the classroom and six hours of office and tutorial work.
The European Court of Justice (EJC) has already ruled in favour of the lettori in six rulings on grounds of illegal discrimination.
Lawyers for the Association of Foreign Lecturers in Italy (ALLSI), of which Mr Petrie is chairman, wrote to the European Commission calling for the start of infringement proceedings against Italy. Mr Petrie has now asked MEPs on the European Parliament’s legal affairs committee to seek the speedy intervention of the European Commission.
“What the Romans would never have done, an Italian government has done,” he said. “So how did we get to this point and why? Why in particular has the Italian state brought in such drastic measures?
“Answer for 20-odd years universities all over Italy, bankrolled by their paymaster the Italian state, have been wasting millions on lawsuits rather than paying foreigners the same wages as Italians.
“The Italian authorities have not unilaterally implemented the ECJ decisions. Consequently there are hundreds of court cases pending but despite Italy’s gruesomely slow legal system, the chickens are coming home to roost.
“The University of Padua, for example, has been ordered to pay five million euros in damages for years of unpaid arrears in wages to 14 lettori. The universities fear that in the future they will be forced to pay equal wages for equal work.
“So universities are saying, ‘We’re bust, we can’t pay’ and the state is saying, ‘We won’t pay’ can’t pay, won’t pay.
“The Berlusconi government’s ‘solution’ is to ‘extinguish’ lettori lawsuits, because that is literally what Article 26 states. It ‘extinguishes’ all pending court cases, thereby legislating against judgments of the ECJ and legislating against the EU Treaty and stripping us of full citizens’ rights.”
Mr Petrie urged the committe to ask the parliament’s legal affairs committee to commission its own report on this complaint and, given its seriousness, to make a public statement to the media.
The academic has worked for nearly 30 years at the University of Verona, where he lectures in English. In 1995 he applied for a temporary promoted post but was excluded from selection procedures on the grounds that he did not have the requisite qualifications.
In 1997 Mr Petrie formed an independent trade union to campaign against the stance by the Italian state. With the help of Professor John Young, who taught at Milan State University and is originally from Auchterarder, Mr Petrie took the case to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
A Venice Administrative Tribunal held this to be a violation of the EU Treaty that prohibits discrimination based on nationality. However, the Venice Regional Tribunal rejected his claim for damages before Italy’s Supreme Court for administrative matters overturned that decision.
Photo used under a Creative Commons licence courtesy of Flickr user Shaylor.