The European Commission refers Italy to the Court of Justice of the European Union for not putting an end to the excessive use of fixed-term contracts and discriminatory working conditions in schools. The two main issues highlighted are the abuse of fixed-term contracts among teachers and the lack of recognition of seniority increments for them.
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The European Commission states that Italy “has not adopted the necessary rules to prohibit discrimination regarding working conditions and the abusive use of successive fixed-term contracts”. Additionally, the legislation on the salary of fixed-term teachers in public schools, which “does not provide for a salary progression based on previous periods of service,” constitutes “discrimination against teachers hired on a permanent basis.”
The Commission believes that “the efforts of the authorities have been inadequate so far,” hence the referral. Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara claims to have long emphasized to the Commission the need to revise the recruitment system for Italian teachers “by overcoming the rigidities of the PNRR reform, which create an objective discrimination to the detriment of temporary teachers and do not take into account the numbers of precariously employed teachers that have increased in recent years. We are hopeful that the equalization of rights can now also be extended to recruitment forms. We are committed to solving problems created and left unresolved by previous governments in which the Pd and M5S had decisive roles. Precarious employment did not start today.
The opposition sees it differently. “In 2017, thanks to the work of the Pd, we had prepared rules that would have progressively reduced the number of temporary teachers through a well-structured training and recruitment system alongside a series of competitions. Unfortunately, for ideological and flagrant reasons, that system was abolished,” says Irene Manzi, school coordinator of the Pd. Italy’s referral “is another rejection for Giuseppe Valditara and the Meloni government on the school front,” according to M5S group leader in the culture committee at the Chamber Antonio Caso.
The General Confederation of Labor Cgil also speaks of “government failure,” represented by secretary Gianna Fracassi. Satisfied with the spotlight placed on precarity by Europe are Gilda, Cisl, Uil, and Anief, each proposing different solutions to solve the problem. The number of teachers on fixed-term contracts has skyrocketed in recent years. There were 100,000 in 2015-16, 135,000 in 2017-18, 212,000 in 2020-21, up to 235,000 in 2022-23, according to Tuttoscuola data. This year, unions estimate 250,000 temporary teachers, but the Ministry of Education puts it at 160,000. The phenomenon is not consistent across the country: while the national precarity rate is 25%, it reaches 37% in Milan, and even 43% in Lodi. The incidence is lower in the south, with 20% in Naples and 10% in Agrigento.
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