Milan, strike at Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper: jobs at risk

In Milan, next Saturday, April 21, the Cenacolo Vinciano may close its doors due to an announced staff strike that, if confirmed, will prevent visitors from seeing theLast Supper, Leonardo da Vinci’s celebrated masterpiece. The strike will be preceded on Wednesday 11 by an assembly (which will keep the Cenacle’s doors closed for a couple of hours) and a flash mob (in which workers will stage Leonardo’sLast Supper itself) to inform the public about the conditions of the Cenacle’s workers. The ten ticket office workers and eight bookshop workers, in fact, are at risk of losing their jobs in view of the renewal of the contract for the concession of services.

As is well known, the Ronchey Law provides that the Ministry of Cultural Heritage can outsource the so-called additional services of museums, such as ticketing, bookshop, cafeteria, and guided tours. These services are typically granted to private individuals who win tenders on the basis of ministerial notices: in Milan (the Cenacolo is a museum of the ministry), the current tender is expiring, but the workers complain that there are no guarantees about their reabsorption into the workforce of the company that will win the contract. In fact, the tender includes a clause requiring the successful bidder to absorb as a priority the workers who are already active at the Vinciano Cenacolo, but according to the unions, this clause is not sufficient to guarantee continuity with certainty. Hence, the proclamation of the strike for Saturday, April 21, a highly symbolic day, since that date will close Milan Design Week, which attracts thousands of tourists from all over Italy and the world every year.

On April 20, there will be a meeting with the director of the Polo Museale della Lombardia in which they will take stock of the situation: the workers are demanding that all ambiguities on employment continuity be removed from the announcement (in other words, that they be allowed to continue to operate within the walls of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, home of the Cenacolo). In the meantime, tomorrow the Cenacolo workers will meet from 12 to 2 p.m. in an assembly on the square in front of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, and they will also be joined in solidarity by the ten janitors, who are instead employed by the Ministry.

Milan, strike at Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper: jobs at risk

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