Milan, Civic Museums workers protest. Assemblies and museums closed

The protest of Milan’s civic museum workers continues, who have decreed a two-hour union assembly for May 31 with the result that the municipal museums will close for two hours just as the city begins to breathe in the atmosphere of the June 2 bridge, and have also opened up the possibility of declaring a strike. As early as last March, 200 workers at Milan’s municipal museums declared a state of agitation due to the failure to open talks on upcoming calls for tenders.

The point is that Milan’s museums rely on about 200 outsourced receptionists, and therefore have no certainty about their future (and to this is added the fact that many of them earn little money and about half are hired on call, and therefore do not have a stable contract): whether or not they can continue working depends in fact on the tenders.

The decision was made on Wednesday, May 25, during an assembly attended by 120 workers (resulting in the closure for a few hours of some locations, namely the Museo del Novecento and the PAC - Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, on that date as well). “Despite numerous meetings with the City of Milan,” the Filcams Cgil Milano union points out, “serious problems remain for the more than 200 workers in the museum and library reception contract: total uncertainty with respect to the future contract, job retention and, the only certainty, starvation wages and on-call work for 50 percent of the workers.”

According to the union, the city administration “gives no guarantee that the next tender will resolve this situation.” And it announces its next moves: “The first, in order of time, will be an assembly on the afternoon of May 31 in Piazza della Scala in conjunction with the city council meeting. An 8-hour strike package has also been proclaimed, and it has been decided to ask for a meeting with the Municipal Institutions and a hearing at the council committees Labor and Culture to explain the reasons for the protest and to ask for a quick and concrete solution.” No date is yet known for the strike, but in the event it would be the first strike in the history of Milan’s museums.

Milan, Civic Museums workers protest. Assemblies and museums closed

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