Reggio Emilia, 27 May 2024 – What emancipation can it give an internship which lasts for 7 years, always with a salary of 250 euros per month, without social security contributions or coverage in case of illness? And what skills can be acquired if in 7 years it is not recognized at intern any job advancement? How thin does the boundary between training internship and labor exploitation become in these conditions?
These are the questions posed in the first lines of the article with which, on May 1st 2023, the situation of Federica Montagna, 32 year old girl in autistic spectrum. Twelve months later, the answer that Federica and her mother Maria Rosaria wanted arrived, the one for which they fought or, more simply, the only answer that was right to arrive: from September Federica will be hired on a permanent basis.
His will be a real one work contract, consistent with the national contract in force for collective catering: Federica works in the school canteens of Val d’Enza, in the province of Reggio Emilia. The turning point has just materialized: she only received the letter on Thursday in which the cooperative informed her that she had been hired. But it was a journey in stages. Indeed, with obstacles.
And in the last 12 months something has happened that hadn’t happened in 7 years. “I’m enthusiastic – says Federica –: it took time, they weren’t easy years, but this contract is now a first, fundamental step in being able to build my independence”.
This is the aspect that needs to be safeguarded: the legitimate right of people with disabilities to live as autonomously as possible. “Today I am the happiest mother in the world” she confesses Maria Rosaria. Better rewind the thread, then.
In June 2011 Federica enrolled in the targeted placement and gradually began working in a municipal nursery under the supervision of theLocal health authority of Montecchio. For the first few years it is an activity of a few days a week, alternating with attendance at the day centre. At a certain point, however, it becomes a job. The first intern contract starts on 15 September 2014. The last one will expire on 17 June 2021. It is then that Federica, now thirty years old, decides to say enough with the internship because she is tired of earning so little and not being able to build any autonomy. On paper, her training course began as a “cleaner” and ended as a “food preparation and cooking worker” in the canteen.
In fact, however, his duties have never changed. And the same goes for his salary: always 250 euros a month for a horizontal part-time job, from Monday to Friday, four hours a day. From 2014 to 2021 there were four extensions. Between one and the other, Federica and her family assure that they have pushed for a real contract. “At the beginning – Maria Rosaria admitted – it was enough for me to see her go to work like all the kids her age. Then we asked ourselves why they continued to make her work in those conditions and we demanded that her work be recognised” .
Hence the choice to hire Laura Andraoa lawyer expert in the protection of people with disabilities, who identifies the genesis of the problem in law 68 of 1999, “a law that should be completely overcome because it provides for socio-occupational placements, not real internships, paid with inadequate amounts for the work that is being done carried out by the person with disabilities and without the employer having any binding constraints on hiring”.
Andrao therefore asks the Local Health Authority to prepare a project for independent living. In less than a week Federica’s contract will expire. But this time it will be replaced by a contract that does not require extensions. TO indefinite period.
