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ROME. Salvatore Patacca is a Neapolitan who has not seen the sea this summer. “I stayed home for fear of the coronavirus.” And this is his premise, almost a Neapolitan measure of his absolute sincerity, “because,” he says, “I have a thyroid disease and a past with two cardiac ischemias. However, even if I have not seen the sea, now I will have to go back to my work at school, amid an avalanche of kids coming back from vacation. Salvatore is a technical assistant at the Gian Lorenzo Bernini Institute in Naples; his return to school will be on August 31 and “I am very worried – he says – but I will have to go anyway, although I would like to stay at home”. For this reason, he asks to be included in the Covid category of “fragile” workers: a word that has been debated for weeks in the Ministry of Education. But without reaching a definitive solution.
Until August, to be considered “fragile” it was enough to be over 55 years old. A criterion so generic as to run the risk of ending 40% of Italian teachers, and the hiring of 84,808 teachers announced yesterday by the Minister of Economy, Roberto Gualtieri, would have been of little use. So now, writes the Ministry of Education, to be “fragile” it is also necessary the “presence of some type of chronic degenerative diseases, diseases of the immune system or oncological”, which must then be evaluated by the GP and communicated. to the Director. But the consequences of this witnessed fragility are not yet clear.
SWould you configure it as an illness, as a work accident or as a new case? And with what consequences on the contract, on the salary, on the lives of the workers? Many of them, throughout Italy, are threatening not to show up at school on September 14. Education Minister Lucia Azzolina, however, does not want to believe it. “I’m afraid there is once again an attempt to discredit our school staff,” he tells Tg3, “even for state exams they told us ‘you won’t find commissioners, everyone will get sick’ and instead it didn’t happen, the staff is trained by very serious and very intelligent people “.
“We are serious and we want to work, but also to be protected,” replies Roberto, a professor of religion in Piedmont, who suffers from immunosuppression and hypertension. Speak while remaining anonymous: “In my complex there are 350 children, in the entire institute there are about 850, and I would like to be able to continue working with distance education. I don’t want to be parked, feel a burden, because – he continues – the dimension of fragility is frustrating in itself. On the other hand, however, this condition of anxiety and uncertainty in which we have been living for weeks is even worse. In the document of the ISS approved yesterday during the unified state-regions conference there is a part dedicated to fragile workers: “A very precise procedure is foreseen – says Azzolina -. The worker who believes he is at risk takes action and the competent doctor evaluates the situation. The document does not provide an answer, however, to the many questions, which bounce around on social networks and in union secretariats, about what will happen after activating this procedure.
«If you are sick – underlines Pino Turi, Uil Scuola – the salary for the first three months is paid at 90%, but the deduction for the following six months is 50%. It is clear that in the case of Covid, this represents a problem ”. Saying goodbye is a luxury that not everyone can afford. Even Maddalena Gissi, from the CISL School, appeals to the good sense of the government, sees the same problems: “Once the maximum period of illness is over, there is a risk of termination of the employment contract – he adds -. Either they declare themselves unfit for work, keeping their position, or they must be allowed to teach at a distance, or under certain conditions, with small groups of young people. Marcello Pacifico, of Anief, calls for “the same protections that are recognized for the rest of the world of work.” On how, however, he shrugs: “The ministry will have to tell us».
