The problem with volunteers in cultural heritage is that they overlap with professionals

For several days a lively controversy has been running on the web about FAI and volunteerism in the field of Cultural Heritage. To focus lattention and criticism on FAI is misleading. It is a nonprofit, which does not mean a charity: why should it now change and pay professionals if it has been incensed for its use of volunteers for years? It enjoys space on state TV; in 2017 it received a plaque from President Mattarella recognizing the commitment of volunteers. The same goes for the Italian Touring Club: they were even entrusted with the Quirinale Palace.

It is the institutions that should reverse course. The world of cultural heritage has for years relied on thousands of cultural associations, nonprofit organizations, pro loco and the like. This is the form by which administrations solve staff shortages and lack of funds, without looking beyond their noses. There are even calls for proposals reserved for voluntary associations. All contrary to Italian tax regulations, which do not give associations the opportunity for so many movements and actions.

There is room for everyone and a volunteer takes nothing away from you: these are two sentences written in recent days by FAI volunteers as a retort to the accusations of so many guides. Not true. Peaceful coexistence and collaboration only occurs in areas where volunteers play roles quite different from professionals. In case of earthquakes, volunteers join Civil Defense or Fire Department personnel; doctors who go to Africa do not take away the place of their colleagues in Italy; those who distribute meals at Caritas and SantEgidio do not compete with restaurants in Trastevere.

Visiting with a professional guide

In contrast, in the world of cultural heritage, volunteers overlap and replace professionals. For every volunteer who conducts a visit, a licensed guide does not work. It is constantly said, “Volunteerism makes it possible to accomplish many things otherwise impossible due to lack of funds.” False. Volunteerism impoverishes the entire economy. For every person who works for free there are two left without pay (the volunteer and the professional who stays home), the state coffers do not take in the relevant taxes, and the economy that one, by earning, would have set in motion does not turn.

The main reason why FAI is admired lies in its work to protect, open and make it possible to visit sites that would otherwise be abandoned and closed. If it were limited to these kinds of actions, we could only applaud it. Instead, in a great many cases he organizes guided tours (paid a few euros by visitors but carried out free of charge by volunteers) to sites that can be opened upon request by all associations or are even always open. And this sometimes goes to prevent the regular work of professionals: guides who had planned and booked visits to a particular site and had their work cancelled because that date was entirely taken and reserved for FAI. Is this not taking work away from professionals?

Entities that use volunteers are competing unfairly with professionals. They can afford to charge nothing or at most 5 euros for a visit while also enjoying tax benefits. If the same visit is organized by a guide with a VAT number, the costs go up because he has taxes and contributions to pay. Which visit will people choose?

If it is already inexcusable for volunteers to replace professionals, it is even absurd to see that in many public sites those who would be entitled to do so are prevented from working in favor of those who by law could not. We are the country where exclusives are given to squatters. The most obvious examples come from the guide industry. There are places where tours are given exclusively to volunteer associations, cultural associations, Civil Service volunteers, etc.: in fact they are almost all people who could not conduct tours.

Let’s take just one example, taken at random: the Quirinale. Since 2016, licensed tour guides have been prohibited from illustrating the heritage (thus prevented from practicing the profession) inside the House of Italians, where guided tours are entrusted exclusively to volunteers, provided by the Italian Touring Club and the three Universities of Rome (students).

This is not the place to delve into this issue. Those interested can read the document presented by Association of Licensed Tour Guides (AGTA) at the Senate hearing on Volunteers and Professions in Cultural Heritage (Document No. 122). Suffice it to say that the Quirinale’s decision offends the already so fragile VAT numbers, humiliates professionals who study and prepare seriously for years, continually updating themselves (at their own expense) in various fields (from languages to storytelling, from web-marketing to voice setting), and shamefully lowers the quality level of the Italian tourist and cultural offer in a site that should be the nation’s licona. You continue to want to confuse two fundamental and distinct concepts of our Constitution: the right to certain services (the right to Health, for example) and the right to (paid) work.

The state has a duty to ensure health care; citizens go to the hospital in order to be treated by paying at most only the co-pay. For the citizen, the service is provided by the state, but doctors, nurses and all staff are paid. Why is this considered normal in health care and not in culture? If the Quirinal Palace, a municipality, or an institution decides to offer visits that are free for the public (a laudable desire), it will be that institution/administration that has to finance the visits by paying the guides. Those who work must still be paid and must be licensed professionals.

Visit with professional guide

The Quirinal, Senate and House have huge funds at their disposal for all expenses of offices, staff, etc.: we would like to know for what other tasks volunteers have been called to work regularly on a free basis instead of paid workers. Did this not by chance occur only for visits, instead of guides?

Underlying these decisions that affect the work of thousands of people are deeply intertwined motivations:

1) Guides, archaeologists and art historians work in beauty, in places that are the passion of so many people. And because everyone thinks that to take a guided tour you only need to read a few books and that, in the end, even if you say something wrong, no one dies, in fact hardly anyone notices, so many people indulge in the dream. No one would be a free accountant out of passion. On the other hand, those who are unemployed or retired or do work that does not fully satisfy them find in volunteering in the world of cultural heritage a source of pride and fulfillment.

2) The idea that the cultural sector should be synonymous with free is ingrained. The world of archaeologists and art historians has for decades been exclusive to the wealthy; talk of money was not appropriate. No one is outraged that doctors are paid to save a life, lawyers or judges to ensure justice, or politicians to govern, although these are all very noble and necessary activities for humanity. Yet the categories that work on tourism (tour operators, agencies, guides) are still viewed negatively by many, almost as profiteers who speculate on cultural heritage.

3) For decades, politics and the educational system have instilled in people’s minds the idea that cultural heritage is on the last rung of the value ladder. Almost all Italians are willing to pay 30 euros for a dinner in a trattoria, but not for a guided tour with a ticket in a museum.

Until a year ago, volunteering could be categorized as a matter of principle: in many cities it already constituted a limitation to work for so many people, but one could look beyond that. In 2020, when in some regions guides have been out of work for many months and no longer even know whether they will start again next April, volunteering constitutes a serious problem, which one is no longer willing to gloss over. The state must choose: either with professionals or with volunteers. It cannot continue to charge taxes and demand compliance from some and then grant funds, sites and awards to others. The three-way relationship does not work.

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