The CGIL Public Service of Cremona reports serious and prolonged suffering in the staff of the central functions of the Cremona prison, a situation that has persisted for almost a decade. The opening of the new detention pavilion in 2013 further aggravated this situation without any effective solutions being found. While the penitentiary police force has benefited from a partial and insufficient update of the organic plan (only for the roles of agent and assistant), the staff of the central functions, in particular the accounting and administrative areas, have always been stuck in the forecast of the plan organic, with numerous vacancies and an unsustainable increase in the workload for current staff.
Furthermore, a significant portion of these staff are subject to work restrictions.
Despite the recent hiring of educators (FGP), they have been relocated to other penitentiary institutions, complaining of poor recognition of their role and requests that are beyond their competences.
The accounting area is continually impoverished and has only two officials: one who will retire in the next few years and the other suffering from disabling pathologies.
The secretarial area is also in difficulty due to the absence of a responsible official.
This local crisis reflects a broader regional crisis of Central Administrations in Lombardy, with shortages of staff, tools and resources leading to dismantling, closures and mergers of offices, distancing the State from local communities. Differentiated autonomy is not a solution, as it would increase inequalities and injustices.
For years, the Cremonese institute has not been considered an attractive location for successful candidates, who choose other destinations. The situation is aggravated by the decision-making fragility of the regional (Provveditorato) and national (Department of Penitentiary Administration) higher bodies.
We are also concerned about the health and safety of working environments.
Attention must not only be paid to the precarious detention conditions of inmates or to the difficulties of the penitentiary police force, but also to the “civilian” staff of the Central Functions, often forgotten and compressed between the Management and the Penitentiary Police Force. We firmly oppose this logic, since every day we face inconveniences and discomforts, especially of an organizational nature and linked to excessive workloads, as demonstrated by the use of service orders and circulars that redistribute and accumulate tasks and functions on the few workers in service.
This situation highlights insufficient staff management and operational choices that negatively influence the loyalty of workers, who are often subject to frequent turnover. Prison healthcare is also mainly governed by freelance activity, since public healthcare and socio-healthcare personnel do not feel adequately protected in a high-risk context.
The FP CGIL of Cremona launches an appeal to local and political institutions to intercede with the Ministry of Justice for the immediate assignment of human resources through an extraordinary employment plan in the public administration. It is necessary to introduce economic and welfare incentives to enhance skills and stimulate territorial attractiveness, considering the prison of Cremona as a “disadvantaged location”. In this sense, as a trade union organisation, we offer services, agreements and opportunities to members to make up for employer shortages. The housing and logistics emergency linked to transport does not only concern large cities, but also our local area.
We will not limit ourselves to the state of unrest announced on 20 May 2024 at a regional level, but – following the staff union meeting on 19 June – we declare the “overtime block”, we urge the Management to improve integration and collaboration between all staff respecting their mutual roles, and we will continue along the path of mobilization at all levels, hoping for the support of the local community and citizens.
