An open letter to the rector of the University of Trieste
A letter from Giorgio Vesnaver, Trieste
Dear Prof. Romeo,
You will remember that we first met when you were head of Research Areas and I was head of CGIL Research. I would now like to give you some of my reflections. You are not directly responsible for the episode I am about to relate, but as you are this University’s "leader maximus", I feel that you are the correct person to receive this letter.
My wife Sigrid committed suicide on November 20 after a 12-year battle against both a psychic illness, which manifested itself intermittently, and the painful suffering that resulted from this. Sigrid was a lettrice [foreign-language lecturer] at the University of Trieste’s Faculty of Letters and Philosophy. She loved her work, she loved her students and in return she received their great affection. During even the most acute phases of her illness, she still found the strength to carry on working despite the fact that this cost her an enormous loss of energy. Her work as a teacher (upheld by two separate labour court judges) was recompensed with a wage more or less equivalent to that earned by a friend of mine who is a member of a window cleaning cooperative. In the end, her sense of justice and dignity prevailed over her natural aversion to conflict and she raised legal proceedings against the University in order to see her right to a wage at least partly in line with her work recognised.
Sigrid won a first case for the years 1992-1995, after which the University followed the advice of the State Advocate and decided to re-apply the wage of a window cleaner from 1995. This year she also won her new case. According to the judge’s ruling, all past and future work by lettori should be paid at the same rate as university assistants on fixed-term contracts.
Unfortunately, from the academic year 1999/2000 Sigrid's colleagues (either autonomously or by carrying out the orders of their superiors) decided to punish Sigrid by downgrading her teaching duties, thus depriving her of her third and fourth year teaching courses, her monographic courses, her seminars and her participation at oral examinations. At the same time some teaching staff, who had until the previous day been great friends of my wife's, inveighed against her because she had dared to raise court action. They isolated her and excluded her from their work meetings and teaching programme discussions. Had this happened to me, I would calmly have expressed my scorn for these pseudo-colleagues and for the repressive system set in motion by the university system. But it was a very hard blow to Sigrid’s fragile psyche: in addition to losing the work she loved most, she was treated like a pariah, an inferior being. Living alongside her I saw how much this situation aggravated her illness, inducing a mechanism of lack of self-esteem, and the same doctors who treated her confirmed the pernicious consequences of this state of affairs on her psyche. At the start of each academic year she would again undergo enormous suffering for the wrongs she had endured. This was made even worse by the fact that she continued to perceive her salary to be quite inadequate for the work that she carried out for her students with such effort and dedication.
You see, Prof. Romeo, beyond those grand research projects, if there is no humanity, sensitivity and respect for others, this society will not progress. You people have consciously exploited the lettori, knowing fully well what their real teaching duties are, without any respect for their dignity, just as you are doing right now with other temporary workers. Progress? Development? No, this is regressing to the law of the jungle where only the power of the strongest counts, with no surviving trace of humanity and consideration for the weakest.
Probably my wife would have died the same day and at the same hour if this was her destiny, but your collective behaviour surely aggravated her illness and a part of the weight of her death, in my opinion, hangs over your consciences. Perhaps now, too late and in the light of two court decisions against you, you will decide to pay the lettori their dues. But my wife will no longer be able to benefit from this, now that she has been struck down by an illness greatly contributed to by your arrogance and your scorn for other people’s rights. On the other hand, from what I know of you, I do not believe that Sigrid’s death will trouble the consciences of honest people such as yourselves. Nothing can now alter what has happened, but I recount this episode only in order to avoid other, similar repetitions in the future.
Note: This letter, originally in Italian, was first published by JUST Response on December 13 2005.
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