About 200 permanent and non-permanent staff members interrupted the morning opening session of the XI SuperB Workshop at Frascati on 1 December to explain to the international scientific community the plight of those stabilization-eligible employees who are receiving termination notices. A flyer with the following text was circulated among the conference participants.
SuperB: An inspiring challenge at the intensity frontier
Is INFN doing enough to ensure adequate staffing for its success?
INFN’s critical contributions to projects like the LHC were made possible by the efforts of its non-permanent workforce. These young (and not so young) researchers, technologists, technicians, and administrative assistants have worked tirelessly to fulfill INFN’s scientific mission, without benefits and without any prospects for more stable employment. They will be no less critical to the successful construction and operation of SuperB. Is INFN doing anything to plan for their future? (more…)
The following letter was undersigned by dozens of permanent INFN staff members and associates and sent to the Council of Directors. The signatures were collected within a couple of hours before the letter was sent; many additional signatures continue to arrive.
To the INFN Council of Directors:
We are forwarding the following letter, signed by permanent staff members and associates today, 27 November, in the span of a few hours. Please read it with attention.
Best regards.
To the INFN Council of Directors:
Subject: Extension of contracts for stabilization-eligible employees
Over the course of the last few days, we have come to understand that the INFN is sending letters to stabilization-eligible employees notifying them that their fixed-term contracts will be concluded at the end of 2009. We believe this to be a serious mistake that is the result of an ultra-restrictive interpretation of the relevant regulations, and which above all damages the INFN, as we attempt to explain in this letter. We are appealing to each member of the Council of Directors to carefully consider our arguments, and to work towards the revocation by the INFN of the termination letters already delivered and for the extension of the fixed-term contracts of the stabilization-eligible employees under the terms of the stabilization procedure.
1. Because it will be damaging to the interests of the INFN.
The stabilization-eligible employees have term contracts without end dates—the contracts are valid for the duration of the stabilization procedure. The costs of these contracts does not count against the allocation of the INFN’s operating budget for normal fixed-term contracts, which by law cannot exceed 35% of the 2004 expenditure, or about 2.5 million euros. On the other hand, if the stabilization contracts are terminated, the INFN finds itself having to decide between two bad alternatives: definitively let go of the stabilization-eligible employees, or offer them new fixed-term contracts. In the former case, there would be obvious consequences on the INFN research program, given the level of experience of these employees and their responsibilities within their experiments. In the latter case, the new contracts would count against the spending limits for INFN-funded contracts or soak up the remaining external funding; in any case, they would use up the scarce resources which would otherwise be available for the retention or recruitment of younger employees. From the standpoint of opportunity alone, therefore, it is important to extend the contracts of the eligible employees under the premises of the stabilization procedure.
2. Because it is based on an incorrect understanding of the relevant regulations.
The status of a stabilization-eligible employee is determined by law in accordance with the 2007 budget act, which established well-known criteria for giving permanent contracts to many types of workers, and which also provided for the retention in service of eligible employees up until the end of the stabilization procedure. A March 2008 circular from the Ministry of Public Administration (which by its nature does not have the same force as the law) declared that the stabilization process be considered to end on 31 December 2009. However, the economic emergency measures of this June (a public law in every sense of the word) essentially disregarded the December 2009 date, and recognized the rights of stabilization-eligible employees to up to 40% of new positions opened to public competition during the three-year period 2010-2012. In practice, the stabilization process cannot be considered to have ended, because eligible employees have a collective right to these new positions until the end of 2012. Given this situation, the position of the INFN management—based on the interpretation of a ministerial circular emanated from a lame-duck government and already superseded by law recognizing the status of the stabilization-eligible until end-2012—seems not only incomprehensible, but down right self-injurious. The point is not create new interpretations of the regulations: it is to see them as they are.
3. Because the Council of Directors should take responsibility for extending the contracts of the stabilization-eligible..
We are writing to you because we believe the Council of Directors to be the highest authority of the INFN, since it is the only governing body that can approve official acts. And we believe that, sometimes, the right course is not to adhere blindly to the legal interpretations suggested by bureaucrats, but to try to come to a full understanding of the situation. In the current circumstances, there are institiutes, such as the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV), that have tried to arrive at this fuller understanding. There are others, such as the Superior Institute of Health (ISS), where such discussion is ongoing. As if that were not enough, permit us to suggest that when the regulations present ambiguities of interpretation, a management structure that has the best interests of the Institute at heart must opt for the most advantageous interpretation possible, even at the cost of assuming the responsibility for that choice, especially in an emergency situation like that at hand.
Finally, we note that an approach of this sort would not solve the problem of temporary labor, but it would have the merit of allowing a larger number of fixed-term workers to continue to work at the INFN, and would give the management the time needed to define an exit strategy and discuss it with the personnel.
Signed:
(more…)
Subject: Stabilization (Law 296/2006, Article 1.519) - conclusion of procedures - termination of relationship
In the Preamble and Article 6 of your individual contract to establish a relationship as a fixed-term employee, stipulated on 3 December 2007, the duration of said relationship is determined to coincide with the duration of the stabilization procedures established by law as cited in the subject line.
Said procedures, under current regulations, will conclude on 31 December 2009.
Therefore, you are hereby informed that your relationship as a fixed-term employee will be concluded as of 1 January 2010.
The INFN Personnel Department is available for any necessary clarifications.
The President
Prof. Roberto Petronzio
The following article by Umberto Guidoni was published on the front page of the daily Gli Altri on 24 November 2009:
Il buco nero della Ricerca (The Black Hole of Research)
Umberto Guidoni
"We must insist on greater public and private investment in research." With these words, the President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, returned today to the subject of research in Italy. A subject characterized by the stark contrast between the material circumstances in which the research sector is forced to operate, and the rosier proclamations of the Berlusconi Government as well as most media voices, which now speak in unison.
Just as Napolitano was delivering his heartbreaking appeal for more support for research, about one hundred letters of termination were being delivered to fixed-term researchers and technologists from the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN). INFN President Roberto Petronzio has evidently chosen to hew closely to the burocratic ministerial line rather than to take a stand for the quality of INFN research, which has now been plunged into jeopardy due to the massive exodus of talent that will invariably result. (more…)
The following letter was left as a comment to Paolo Valente’s "modest proposal" to permanent researchers to refuse to participate in selection panels for the new R5 competitions. I found this letter particularly compelling, and so I have reproduced it here as an article in its own right, to give it its due visibility.
Hello,
I am a 43-year old researcher without a permanent position. After my PhD (Laurea and Doctorate at LEP), I did a postdoc abroad, again for LEP/LHC, and then switched to astrophysics at CNR to be able to work in Italy, to where I wanted to return for familiy reasons. I now find myself once again at INFN (I actually have a university fellowship, but I work on ATLAS), since the project on which I worked at CNR was not refinanced and depended on the availability of funding from abroad.
(more…)
This article, from a blog-like futurist webmag, is a reflection on "precarity," Italy, America, the current economic crisis, and the end of the 20th century. It links "Il Buco Nero" as an example of solidarity. It also might add a little levity and perspective to our current plight.
The True 21st Century Begins
Conjecture / by Bruno Argento / January 29, 2009
From the fevered mind of Bruce Sterling and his alter-ego, Bruno Argento, a consideration of things ahead.
My city of Turin, Italy spent the year 2008 as the “World Capital of Design.” Our year ended in financial crisis, just the same as everyone else’s.
This doesn’t much bother me, though I am concerned about the distress of others. Here in Europe, we employ terms rarely heard across the Atlantic. Translated into English, these terms are “solidarity” and “precarity.” The year 2009 will be about these issues. Their time has come. Read more
Source: seedmagazine.com
INFN President Prof. Roberto Petronzio, together with Prof. Benedetto D’Ettore Piazzoli of the INFN Executive Board, Glauco Deleo of the INFN Central Administration, and LNF Director Mario Calvetti, met with about 200 members of the INFN personnel, both permanent and non-permanent. The presence was notable of two sizeable delegations from Gran Sasso National Laboratories (about 15 people) and from the INFN Naples Section (about 10 people). (more…)
Sorry, this entry is only available in Italiano.
Italian protesters win concessions
Thousands of researchers and students who have taken to the streets in protest at reforms of Italian universities and public research institutes have won some limited concessions from the government. The protesters had argued that the reforms, which include significant budget cuts, would further weaken a research base that is already short of resources. The Italian government maintains that its reforms are necessary to modernize a university system that is corrupt and inefficient, but has reversed some of the cuts. (continue)
Source: Edwin Cartlidge, Physics World, December 2008
Italian researchers at CERN show their solidarity with a banner that reads, "Italian research? Like this, it is without a future!" (courtesy of Marcella Bona)
CERN’s Italian contingent faces an uneasy time ahead, following radical changes in their government’s research policy. Budget cuts affecting education and research have led to large-scale protesting in Italy in recent weeks, and Italians across CERN have been uniting to express their concerns.
In August, strict new budget arrangements were approved by the Italian parliament, in an attempt to pull the country out of an economic crisis which has been slowly unfolding for almost 15 years. Mariastella Gelmini – Minister for Education, Universities and Research – introduced cuts and reforms last month, in order to bring her sector into line with the new budget constraints. continue
Fonte: Atlas e-News
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