A letter from Gianna Fracassi, Secretary-Normal of Italy’s largest commerce union, FLC CGIL, has introduced the high-profile case of the long-running discrimination towards non-national college language lecturers(“Lettori”) in Italian universities to the quick consideration of incoming Commissioner for Social Rights and Expertise, High quality Jobs and Preparedness, and Government Fee Vice-President, Roxana Mînzatu. Together with her appointment to this put up, Commissioner Mînzatu joins the lengthy line of commissioners who’ve dealt with the nonetheless unresolved Lettori case. The involvement of her predecessors within the Social Rights portfolio dates all the best way again to the Nineteen Eighties, when the Fee sided with Spanish Lettore, Pilar Allué, within the reference for preliminary ruling case she had taken towards her employer, Univesità degli studi di Venezia. The eventual sentence in favour of Allué was delivered on 30 Might 1989.
Pilar Allué Day, a chunk printed in The European Occasions, tells the story of how a day which must be commemorated because the day on which Lettori received the suitable to parity of therapy is as a substitute remembered as the start line from which to measure a discrimination which endures to the current day. It endures despite three subsequent clear-cut rulings of the Courtroom of Justice of the European Union(CJEU) in favour of the Lettori. The final of those rulings was the 2006 ruling in Case C-119/04, for non-implementation of which the Fee referred an infringement case to the CJEU in August 2023. A listening to within the case is predicted quickly.
In her letter, Secretary-Normal Fracassi remembers the FLC CGIL contacts and fruitful collaboration with Mînzatu’s quick predecessor, Commissioner Nicholas Schmit. Working carefully with Rome-based Lettori affiliation, Asso.CEL.L, FLC CGIL carried out a nationwide Census , which documented the widespread failure of the Italian universities to implement the CJEU rulings in favour of the Lettori. The Census was influential within the Fee’s choice to progress from the prolonged and in the end ineffective EU Pilot Process -a process launched for the diplomatic decision of disputes with Member States- and to open infringement proceedings correct towards Italy in 2021. Over the next course of the proceedings, and as much as the referral of the case to the CJEU, FLC CGIL continued to take care of contact with Commissioner Schmit’s workplace and to contribute to the infringement file.
Finally it’s the duty of the Member States to make sure that EU regulation is applied inside their territories. Within the context, this can be a duty which Italy has constantly shirked, leaving it to the person universities to interpret their obligations to Lettori. This flaw is obvious once more in Interministerial Decree n.688 of Might 2023, the most recent Lettori laws enacted by Italy to purportedly fulfill EU regulation. Whereas underneath the provisions of the decree the central authorities makes funds obtainable to applicant universities to finance settlements for reconstruction of Lettori careers, it’s left to the discretion of the person universities to determine firstly if they’ve a legal responsibility to their Lettori and secondly what the extent of that legal responsibility is. This has successfully led to a nationwide mayhem, with numerous interpretations throughout the colleges as to the settlements due underneath EU regulation.
Within the gentle of the divergent positions on the colleges’ legal responsibility to the Lettori, Secretary-Normal Fracassi hones in on the vital precedent set by the College of Milan in her letter to Commissioner Mînzatu. At Milan, an settlement negotiated and concluded by native FLC CGIL consultant, Sara Carrapa, and funded by Ministry of Universities monies, awarded the Lettori an uninterrupted reconstruction of profession. Fracassi’s authorized reasoning and her deductions from the Milan instance are worthy of quotation:
“Only some universities have accurately applied the ruling in Case C-119/04 and within the phrases of Legislation 63 of 05.03.2004. Within the context of a constant and uniform implementation of the CJEU’s jurisprudence, the instance of the College of Milan is important in a number of respects. Utilizing funds made obtainable by the Ministry of Universities, this college has paid its Lettori the wage variations to realize full and steady profession reconstruction from the primary employment contract signed till at this time.
Because the working positions of Lettori at different universities are the identical as these of their Milanese colleagues, it’s clear that the Italian state’s failure to use to them the final rules laid down by the Courtroom of Justice of the European Union demonstrates, on the one hand, the uncertainty and absolute lack of readability of the nationwide authorized framework of reference and, on the opposite, highlights the discrimination practised towards the Lettori by the plurality of Italian universities.”
Along with the Lettori case, Italy faces an additional trial earlier than the CJEU for its exploitative use of short-term contracts within the academic sector, an abuse towards which FLC CGIL has campaigned and on which it has lobbied the Fee. Within the press launch asserting the referral of this abuse to the CJEU, the Fee states that “opposite to EU regulation, Italy has not taken efficient measures to forestall the abusive use of successive fixed-term employment contracts of administrative, technical, and auxiliary employees in State faculties. This breaches EU regulation on fixed-term employment.”
Linda Armstrong labored as a Lettore on the College of Bologna from 1990 till her retirement in 2020. Her deceased husband, David, additionally a Lettore, by no means obtained the settlement for discriminatory therapy which he was due underneath EU regulation. Commenting on the Fracassi letter to Commissioner Mînzatu, Linda stated:
“The place that EU regulation ought to be utilized constantly throughout the Italian universities is apparent and incontestable. Lettori with working conditions and histories similar to these of their Milan colleagues should subsequently logically be awarded uninterrupted settlements for reconstruction of profession. The March 2004 regulation, of which the CJEU accredited in Case C-119/04 and which Italy has by no means accurately applied, establishes that the settlements have to be primarily based on the parameter of part-time researcher or extra beneficial parameters received earlier than the native courts.
Scrutiny of the regulation additionally exhibits that it locations no closing dates on the interval for which reconstruction of profession is due. That is how Milan, and certainly, another universities have interpreted it. Within the run-in to what would be the fifth case within the Allué line of litigation,the Fee have to be significantly vigilant within the face of makes an attempt by the colleges to restrict or deny their legal responsibility to their Lettori workers. Had been this to be allowed to occur, it will end result within the absurd scenario whereby the infringement proceedings can be turned to the benefit of the member state in breach.” Secretary-Normal Fracassi’s letter was copied to President of the Fee, Ursula von der Leyen, who has taken a private curiosity within the Lettori case over the course of her mandate.
