Italy’s lettori divided on £36 million plan to end epic dispute

A decades-long legal fight by foreign university staff in Italy for equal pay and conditions may finally be resolved after ministers set aside €43 million (£36 million) to compensate lecturers.

The claims of about 1,000 foreign language assistants, known as the lettori, who say they were underpaid for years on account of a lack of equal job status, hit an impasse back in 2011 when Rome ignored calls by the UK government and European Union politicians to settle the matter.

However, a surprise intervention by the European Commission in November led Italy to revisit the cases after the commission demanded an end to “discrimination”, stating that “most foreign lecturers have still not received the money to which they are entitled”. A failure to respond could have seen Italy stripped of some of the €15 billion that the EU is funnelling into Italian universities over the next five years as part of its €807 billion Covid-linked Next Generation recovery package.

The dispute goes back to 1980, when Italy passed a law granting tenure to Italian nationals teaching in universities while giving lettori annual contracts renewable for five years. This was successfully challenged in Italian courts and the European Court of Justice during the 1990s and early 2000s as discriminating on the basis of nationality, but no action was ultimately taken against Italy.

Any opportunity for redress appeared permanently blocked by the Gelmini law – named after Mariastella Gelmini, a former higher education minister – which came into force in 2011 and specifically “extinguished” ongoing lawsuits being pursued by the lettori.

But, recommending the approval of about €43 million to co-finance settlements with Italian universities, current higher education minister Maria Cristina Messa explained that the government could not simply pass the problem on to universities because “it is up to the member state to ensure the application of EU law”.

“The endgame is in sight for the longest-running breach of EU parity of treatment rules,” said Henry Rodgers, from Sapienza University of Rome, an Irish national who has been based in Italy since the 1990s.

“Employment rights which should have been automatic under the EU treaties have been withheld for decades,” he added, stating staff “look forward to receiving the long-due settlements in the coming months”.

However, David Petrie, chair of the Association of Foreign Lecturers in Italy, was concerned that the deal might come with strings attached, particularly as ministers had no desire to repeal the Gelmini law.

“They have put some money on the table but they have not abrogated the Gelmini law and its modifications, in which lettori must renounce arrears for the past in order to get paid for the future,” he said.

The proposed agreement would calculate compensation, such as improved pensions and salaries, “up until the Gelmini law but altered downward after that”, explained Mr Petrie.

“And why would the universities contribute? They haven’t done so in the past – one has, Milan, but why would others do so [unless] they are not forced?

“Italy has put some more cash on the table hoping that lettori will accept it, and some might, especially those with a few more years’ service to go. Those already on pension will get nothing in compensation for unpaid arrears on wages and pensions.”

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com