Italian staff on the Aviano Air Base in northern Italy paused from flipping burgers, unloading vehicles and restocking cabinets not too long ago to open an e-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 staff in the US, however relatively in Italy, a rustic the place staff’ rights are held sacrosanct.
The outcome 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 ceaselessly 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 the US thirty first Fighter Wing, employs greater than 700 Italian civilian personnel who each day cook dinner and clear and usually maintain the bottom working.
In all about 4,000 Italian civilian staff work at bases serving about 15,000 American troopers in Italy, turning every right into a form of a miniature American city the place U.S. navy personnel can discover American meals and different acquainted gadgets from dwelling.
These jobs, in step with longstanding labor traditions in Italy, are totally unionized and guarded below Italian labor legal guidelines. However on the similar time, the workers work for the US authorities, which pays their salaries.
Labor unions say the e-mail was forwarded from a division head to dozens of Italian civilian staff working within the Aviano base’s Military & Air Drive alternate service, which offers items and companies to the U.S. Military.
Nobody appeared sure whether or not it was a one-off misunderstanding or if Mr. Musk was trying to say his calls for over Italian staff in addition to American ones. A Division of Protection official mentioned that whereas these emails have been meant for U.S. staff, native staff “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 an announcement.
Mr. Bombardieri known as the emails “unacceptable” and the tactic “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 straight from the U.S. authorities — not whether it is forwarded to them, as occurred at Aviano and a minimum of one different base in Italy, within the metropolis of Vicenza. However it remained unclear whether or not the Division of Protection was going to succeed in out to Italian staff straight.
Some German staff of the U.S. authorities in Germany additionally obtained Mr. Musk’s first e-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 e-mail seems to have been despatched solely to American staff in Germany, the diplomat mentioned.)
Within the meantime, some Italian staff 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 have been all very puzzled,” he mentioned. “Italy isn’t the Wild West just like the U.S.”
Regardless of current adjustments that tried to make the labor market extra versatile, Italy’s labor legal guidelines proceed to supply broad protections to staff. Particularly within the public sector, getting a everlasting job is commonly seen as a assure to be unfireable for all times.
Many in Italy worth this method 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 e-mail. “No. 1: I come to work, No. 2: I clock in, No. 3: breakfast,” he mentioned. “No. 4: match 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’m 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 critical 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 staff at Aviano used to buy gear for the bottom, then began a hiring freeze, the unions mentioned.
Union staff mentioned they didn’t know what was going to return subsequent. However they mentioned they have been going to combat on.
“Musk can do no matter he desires in the US,” mentioned Emilio Fargnoli, a union consultant. “If they’re proud of it, positive,” he added. “Not right here.”
Jim Tankersley and Jeanna Smialek contributed reporting.
