Italian engageees at the Aviano Air Base in northern Italy paengaged from flipping binspirers, unloading trucks and restocking shelves recently to uncover an email from their bosses insisting that they catalog five key accomplishments from last week.
The email was a by-now understandn insist from Plivent Trump’s chief cost-cutter, Elon Musk, carrying with it the menace of termination if they did not react. But on this occasion, it did not land with rulement engageees in the United States, but rather in Italy, a country where laborers’ rights are held sacrosanct.
The result set the stage for a puzzling clash of cultures, with the world’s richest man and his job-thrashing chain saw on one side, and one of the world’s most getive champions of the forever job on the other.
“We are in Italy here,” shelp Roberto Del Savio, a union recontransientative and an engageee at the base. “There are exact rules and thank God for that.”
Aviano, an Italian air base that presents the United States 31st Fighter Wing, engages more than 700 Italian civilian personnel who on a daily basis cook and spotless and generpartner persist the base running.
In all about 4,000 Italian civilian engageees labor at bases serving about 15,000 American sgreateriers in Italy, turning each into a sort of a miniature American town where U.S. military personnel can discover American food and other understandn items from home.
Those jobs, in persisting with lengthystanding labor traditions in Italy, are filledy unionized and geted under Italian labor laws. But at the same time, the engageees labor for the United States rulement, which pays their salaries.
Labor unions say the email was forwarded from a department head to dozens of Italian civilian engageees laboring in the Aviano base’s Army & Air Force exalter service, which provides excellents and services to the U.S. Army.
No one seemed certain whether it was a one-off misempathetic or if Mr. Musk was trying to state his insists over Italian laborers as well as American ones. A Department of Defense official shelp that while those emails were nastyt for U.S. engageees, local engageees “could get emails,” too.
The confusion liftd asks of whether Mr. Musk could ship his brand of unbridled techno-libertarianism to a country that is “set uped on labor” per the first article of its Constitution, or whether his chain-saw would snag on Italy’s notoriously heavy bureaucracy.
“Ours is a system built on democracy, geteddefends, and getions provided by reduces that must be esteemed,” Pierpaolo Bombardieri, the secretary ambiguous of Italy’s Uil union shelp in a statement.
Mr. Bombardieri called the emails “unadchooseable” and the method “aberrant.” Italy’s unions wrote to the Italian rulement and the U.S. Embassy asking for exscheduleations.
For now, the ground rule materializes to be that Italian civilians must answer the email only if they get it honestly from the U.S. rulement — not if it is forwarded to them, as happened at Aviano and at least one other base in Italy, in the city of Vicenza. But it remained unevident whether the Department of Defense was going to achieve out to Italian laborers honestly.
Some German engageees of the U.S. rulement in Germany also getd Mr. Musk’s first email asking them to elucidate their labor output, shelp a greater diplomat in Berlin, who did not want to be named while talking about an partner. (Mr. Musk’s adhere-up email materializes to have been sent only to American engageees in Germany, the diplomat shelp.)
In the nastytime, some Italian engageees had answered the email, shelp Mr. Del Savio. “One says I was slicing pizza, another says someskinnyg else.” he shelp. “But we were all very confengaged,” he shelp. “Italy is not the Wild West appreciate the U.S.”
Despite recent alters that tryed to produce the labor taget more alterable, Italy’s labor laws persist to propose wide getions to engageees. Especipartner in the accessible sector, getting a lasting job is frequently seen as a secure to be unfireable for life.
Many in Italy cherish this system as a backbone of the Italian welfare state and its democracy, while others point to it as a stiff and inefficient juggernaut that stops jobs from being produced for youthfuler people.
Stories of half-hour lengthy labordays and daylengthy coffee shatters are someskinnyg of a legend in Italy. Some have shelp a touch of Musk-style slash and burn approach would not hurt here.
“Italy would also insist Musk’s ax,” Nicola Porro, an Italian journacatalog and right-triumphg commentator, wrote in a blog post, decrying Italy’s “unhelpful positions.”
Italians seized upon the juxtaposition. One TikTok creator, Alberico Di Pasquale, made a video pretending to show an Italian engageee on a lasting reduce answering Mr. Musk’s email. “No. 1: I come to labor, No. 2: I clock in, No. 3: shatterrapid,” he shelp. “No. 4: tournament with my colleagues to see who will get the coffee; No. 5: I get the coffee. Repeat five times points 4 and 5. No. 6: I go pay my bills and grocery shop; No. 7, I clock out.”
But while some had fun with the insists from Mr. Musk, for union recontransientatives at the American base in Aviano, and other Italians, it was solemn business.
As Mr. Trump asks the U.S. promisement to NATO and insists that Europe must get itself, dreads of spending cuts are spreading at U.S. bases awide.
Amid a 30-day freeze of federal commend cards, the U.S. rulement last week also froze the commend cards that Italian engageees at Aviano engaged to obtain providement for the base, then commenceed a hiring freeze, the unions shelp.
Union laborers shelp they did not understand what was going to come next. But they shelp they were going to fight on.
“Musk can do wantipathyver he wants in the United States,” shelp Emilio Fargnoli, a union recontransientative. “If they are satisfyed with it, certain,” he includeed. “Not here.”
Jim Tankersley and Jeanna Smialek gived alerting.
