If you are looking for tenure in some Italian labs, you may need to consider which workers’ union should support you.
While this story is real, people and places aren’t.
Antonio has been working in the Solid State Physics National Lab for the last 14 years, landing there right after completing his undergraduate studies. Over the last few years, he made the “ambitious” step to the limbo of tenure-track1 at the same institute. Since his institute is concerned that too many of its employees are on renewable, albeit non-continuous contracts, it is trying to stabilize them at bunches of 20 or so, by landing them to tenure. Age of service is highly valued in the metrics used to evaluate who’s making the big step.
Antonio waited long enough, until the day he knew that, this time, he would really make it. His Union told him so: his ranking position was fine for him to be ferried to tenure. Unfortunately, a stronger workers’ Union secured a revision of the rules. And in a blink, according to the the new rules, uh-oh…Antonio is out.
Antonio is now devastated and disillusioned. Should he turn to another Union? Why should he invest more in his productivity when he feels that it won’t make any difference? And what story will he tell to his family?
Just as I was sympathizing with Antonio’s anger, I entered Mel Bookstore in Via Nazionale_, and got struck by a new scandal book, which I had not seen before.
L’Altra Casta (The Other Caste) is written by Stefano Livadiotti and describes “privileges, careers, and mis-behavings of the Unions”.
Wow. How did that book knew I was entering the store? This may be no coincidence. Unions are under gunfire. The outgoing President of Confindustria, Italy’s Employers Confederation, hammered on them today4fc81fac-0d67-11dd-9f4c-00144f486ba6. Also, and not unrelated, the political elections of last weekend saw a massive migration away from the radical left. Something is changing in the Bel Paese and it’s hard to see what it will bring.
1 Actually, tenure-track in Italy is a rather uncommon track, as I wrote about before
Massimo, another post that paints a pessimistic picture of the state of Italian science. Where are the good stories?
The unions are not that important in German science. But in 2001 they were influential in the decision by the German government that German scientists working at a public institution have 12 years after graduation to either get a permanent position (usually tenure) or leave. The law wanted to avoid the 48-year-old scientist with family working with a two-year-contract. The result was of course that many scientists in the late 30ies or early 40ies all of the sudden were without a job perspective because there are very few permanent jobs other than professorships.
Martin,
from what you write, I understand that you are reading my posts regularly, which honours me!
I have been writing about good news every time I have come to know about them. Surely I will continue to do so. I am irreversibly addicted to optimism, omozygote wild-type for the opt gene. Well, I am not sure whether I’d survive siRNA treatment.
But, I would like to think that this is not a matter of pessimism here. I am only reporting facts. The sad part of the story is that, apparently, Italian Work Unions may be missing the very point of their mission. Rather than representing workers and fighting for them, they may have become an instrument to generate fights, or hatred, between them. If I saw a concerted action, respectful of the scientific community, I would surely take my hat off.
If unions aren’t really helping scientists, what about the Italian research organizations? Are they doing all they can to support you?
As for good news, that Italian football player today again scored two goals, this time helping Bayern München win the German Cup.
Just to say, I read this and the linked previous post and found it so interesting that I actually want to spend some time responding. So I am sort of leaving a bookmark for myself to do that…