Discriminatory welcome back to Italy

I teach English language at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature at the University of Bergamo in Italy. I produce and develop materials for use in class; I set, supervise and mark written examinations; I conduct oral exams; students come to see me for advice in office hours. I’ll stop here.

In most countries such a job description would speak for itself. Yet, according to the Italian state, I stopped being a teacher in 1995, when a law downgraded my status to that of “technical-administrative” staff. Far from having anything against this category of workers, I simply fail to see what my job has in common with those of the university's librarians, accountants, secretaries, administrators, computer staff, technicians, porters and middle and senior management. Equally baffling is what actually distinguishes my job from those of its "teaching" staff. Perhaps somebody could enlighten me.

Although my parents emigrated to Britain from Trentino in the 1950s, during their time in the UK they always maintained and instilled in me the awareness of being Italian, as well as British. Italian was the language we spoke at home; Italy the country we regularly visited for holidays; Italian the subject I studied at under- and post-graduate level in the UK. The importance of being Italian and of all things Italian was also actively encouraged by those Italian authorities and institutions locally represented in various cultural, educational and immigrant associations – but all their fine words have, alas, proved to be in vain.

President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and the present minister for Italians abroad, Mirko Tremaglia, are among those who have expressed their great solidarity for Italian nationals and their families living outside Italy. Little did I realise that when I would actually move to Italy, a founding member of the EU and co-signatory of the Treaty of Rome, I would be discriminated against on the grounds of – of all things – nationality. The fact that I am denied the rights and benefits fellow Italian university teachers enjoy as a matter of course means I am effectively treated as a second-class citizen. And continue to be so, despite three EU resolutions and four ECJ rulings. After all, if a free labour market within the EU doesn’t exist for language teachers, then who can it exist for?

Yours,