Italian workers on the Aviano Air Base in northern Italy paused from flipping burgers, unloading vehicles and restocking cabinets just lately to open an electronic mail from their bosses demanding that they listing 5 key accomplishments from final week.
The e-mail was a by-now acquainted demand from President Trump’s chief cost-cutter, Elon Musk, carrying with it the specter of termination if they didn’t reply. However on this event, it didn’t land with authorities workers in america, however fairly in Italy, a rustic the place employees’ rights are held sacrosanct.
The end result set the stage for a puzzling conflict of cultures, with the world’s richest man and his job-thrashing chain noticed on one facet, and one of many world’s most protecting champions of the perpetually job on the opposite.
“We’re in Italy right here,” mentioned Roberto Del Savio, a union consultant and an worker on the base. “There are exact guidelines and thank God for that.”
Aviano, an Italian air base that hosts america thirty first Fighter Wing, employs greater than 700 Italian civilian personnel who each day prepare dinner and clear and customarily maintain the bottom operating.
In all about 4,000 Italian civilian workers work at bases serving about 15,000 American troopers in Italy, turning every right into a type of a miniature American city the place U.S. army personnel can discover American meals and different acquainted gadgets from house.
These jobs, in step with longstanding labor traditions in Italy, are absolutely unionized and guarded beneath Italian labor legal guidelines. However on the identical time, the staff work for america authorities, which pays their salaries.
Labor unions say the e-mail was forwarded from a division head to dozens of Italian civilian workers working within the Aviano base’s Military & Air Drive trade service, which supplies items and providers to the U.S. Military.
Nobody appeared sure whether or not it was a one-off misunderstanding or if Mr. Musk was making an attempt to claim his calls for over Italian employees in addition to American ones. A Division of Protection official mentioned that whereas these emails had been meant for U.S. workers, native workers “might obtain emails,” too.
The confusion raised questions of whether or not Mr. Musk might export his model of unbridled techno-libertarianism to a rustic that’s “based on labor” per the primary article of its Structure, or whether or not his chain-saw would snag on Italy’s notoriously thick paperwork.
“Ours is a system constructed on democracy, safeguards, and protections supplied by contracts that should be revered,” Pierpaolo Bombardieri, the secretary normal of Italy’s Uil union mentioned in a press release.
Mr. Bombardieri referred to as the emails “unacceptable” and the strategy “aberrant.” Italy’s unions wrote to the Italian authorities and the U.S. Embassy asking for explanations.
For now, the bottom rule seems to be that Italian civilians should reply the e-mail provided that they obtain it instantly from the U.S. authorities — not whether it is forwarded to them, as occurred at Aviano and at the very least one different base in Italy, within the metropolis of Vicenza. But it surely remained unclear whether or not the Division of Protection was going to achieve out to Italian employees instantly.
Some German workers of the U.S. authorities in Germany additionally acquired Mr. Musk’s first electronic mail asking them to clarify their work output, mentioned a senior diplomat in Berlin, who didn’t wish to be named whereas speaking about an ally. (Mr. Musk’s follow-up electronic mail seems to have been despatched solely to American workers in Germany, the diplomat mentioned.)
Within the meantime, some Italian workers had answered the e-mail, mentioned Mr. Del Savio. “One says I used to be slicing pizza, one other says one thing else.” he mentioned. “However we had been all very puzzled,” he mentioned. “Italy is just not the Wild West just like the U.S.”
Regardless of latest modifications that tried to make the labor market extra versatile, Italy’s labor legal guidelines proceed to supply broad protections to workers. Particularly within the public sector, getting a everlasting job is usually seen as a assure to be unfireable for all times.
Many in Italy worth this technique as a spine of the Italian welfare state and its democracy, whereas others level to it as a inflexible and inefficient juggernaut that stops jobs from being created for younger folks.
Tales of half-hour lengthy workdays and daylong espresso breaks are one thing of a legend in Italy. Some have mentioned a contact of Musk-style slash and burn method wouldn’t harm right here.
“Italy would additionally want Musk’s ax,” Nicola Porro, an Italian journalist and right-wing commentator, wrote in a blog post, decrying Italy’s “ineffective positions.”
Italians seized upon the juxtaposition. One TikTok creator, Alberico Di Pasquale, made a video pretending to show an Italian employee on a permanent contract answering Mr. Musk’s electronic mail. “No. 1: I come to work, No. 2: I clock in, No. 3: breakfast,” he mentioned. “No. 4: event with my colleagues to see who will get the espresso; No. 5: I get the espresso. Repeat 5 instances factors 4 and 5. No. 6: I am going pay my payments and grocery store; No. 7, I clock out.”
However whereas some had enjoyable with the calls for from Mr. Musk, for union representatives on the American base in Aviano, and different Italians, it was severe enterprise.
As Mr. Trump questions the U.S. dedication to NATO and insists that Europe should defend itself, fears of spending cuts are spreading at U.S. bases overseas.
Amid a 30-day freeze of federal bank cards, the U.S. authorities final week additionally froze the bank cards that Italian workers at Aviano used to buy tools for the bottom, then began a hiring freeze, the unions mentioned.
Union employees mentioned they didn’t know what was going to come back subsequent. However they mentioned they had been going to battle on.
“Musk can do no matter he needs in america,” mentioned Emilio Fargnoli, a union consultant. “If they’re pleased with it, certain,” he added. “Not right here.”
Jim Tankersley and Jeanna Smialek contributed reporting.
