At the Colosseum, there are “120 families at risk of losing their jobs.”
This is the appeal of the workers of the Flavian Amphitheatre’s ticketing service, who staged a protest this morning in front of the monument’s entrance, demanding the suspension of the Consip tender for the renewal of ticketing services, whose tender expires tomorrow, November 3, “or at least a review so that our jobs can be guaranteed.”
“The cost-saving tender for the most important site in Italy represents a failure at the intersection of culture and work rights, and is a very bad example for all other cultural institutions,” the workers said.
“Instead of multiplying job opportunities, it excludes the most qualified professionals by downsizing the object and scope of the tender, and reducing it to a mere supply at the highest price. Instead of protecting workers, it fuels discretion in the guarantees of contract changes.”
In a video showing them lined up behind two banners reading ‘Dignity, experience not precariousness’ and ‘Work is a right not an opportunity’, the Colosseum ticket office workers explained their point of view:
“We have been here for 20 years guaranteeing the opening of the Colosseum,” explained one of the workers.
“The prolonged stay is due to political and bureaucratic facts for which we do not want and cannot take responsibility. We waited confidently for the tender to arrive because we believe in democracy and job alternation, but now someone has written that there is no obligation for whoever takes over to absorb us, and 120 families find themselves at risk of losing their jobs.”
