Letter from Rome:The spirit of Bleak House is alive and well and still practising law, at least in Italy. We all know that justice moves slowly.
Justice moves slowly, but in Italy it hardly moves at all. At least that would appear to be the experience of some 1,600 or so foreign lecturers, based in Italy. After a 20-year legal battle at the European Court of Justice, prompted by the allegedly "discriminatory" treatment they have been subjected to by Italian universities, and marked by three judgments in their favour (in 1989, 1993 and 2001), the foreign lecturers (lettori) are back to square one, ie they are still victims of discrimination in that they are paid less than their Italian counterparts.
At one stage such was the slow progress of the case that some practical Italian lawyers bowed to the seemingly inevitable, making arrangements whereby the children of lettori could receive awards from the courts in the event of their parents' death.
Although few in number, the lettori have been dogged in their determination over the years.
The problem about foreign lecturers in Italy is their status. Are they, as they claim, entitled to be treated as lecturers with pay pegged to that of Italian associate professors, as under the terms of their original employment?
Or are their rates of pay, as decreed by that March 2004 Italian legislation, correctly linked to those on the lowest teaching grade in Italian universities, namely part-time researchers? (The lettori by and large earn 40 per cent of the hourly rate earned by a part-time researcher).
Furthermore, what about the 1995 legislation that effectively reduced the status of the lettori to "collaborator and linguistic expert"? Is this fair? The lettori are not big earners.
Rates vary from university to university, but a national average sees the foreign lecturer do approximately 400 hours or more per annum for €1,000 to €1,500 (after tax) per month. As a result, many of the small army of lettori are obliged to do two or more teaching jobs. In contrast, senior professors, 100 per cent Italian of course, earn from €53,000 to €108,000 per annum (before tax).
Everything exists in its own context, of course, and the context of Italian education, at primary, secondary or third level, is not always rosy.
For example, a senior secondary teacher, with 20 or more years experience, can expect to earn between €1,500-€2,000 per month (after tax) or 20 per cent less than the OECD average.
In that context, have the lettori much to complain about? Perhaps not, yet the position and newly-reduced status of the lettori does not always make sense. I know of one teacher, with postgraduate qualifications in English literature from both Oxford and TCD, working in a prestigious Italian university, who is not allowed to teach English literature.
That task curiously falls to her Italian colleagues, some of whom are her ex-students and none of whom have anything like the same knowledge of or affinity for English literature.
The lettori, of course, are working in the context of a university system all too infamous for its blend of chronic underfunding, inadequate facilities, Byzantine exam systems and huge student numbers (up to 180,000 students are enrolled at La Sapienza, Rome, one of Italy's best known and most respected universities). By Irish standards, campus life (and all the student self-help that goes with it) is almost non-existent.
In such a context, those students who graduate have had to learn not just academic skills but life skills too to steer themselves through a complex obstacle course. Italian university professors are not always "student friendly" - plagiarism of student theses, failure to turn up for exams and/or lectures are not uncommon practices. Can we be surprised then that a recent OECD study describes Italy as "a comparatively minor destination for international students, with only 2 per cent of foreign students worldwide enrolled [ in Italian universities]".
Irishman Henry Rodgers, who teaches at La Sapienza, has long fought the lettori cause, regularly lobbying the European Parliament, even though he had his doubts about ever seeing the European rulings enforced in Italy. He had good reason. Twenty years and umpteen court of justice hearings later the infringement case against Italy was finally closed last month. The commission claims to have received "firm assurances" that national legislation governing employment conditions for lettori will be applied.
Which all leaves us with just one question. Has justice been done?