There’s a story about squatters living in one of the churches in Rome that the Pope uses.
They are, in fact, making some sort of demonstration about the housing crisis in Rome.
However, I was struck by the following:
“We are an alarm call, a heads-up that the housing system in Rome is collapsing,” said Luca Bonucci, 38, a former security guard who lost his home when his employer failed to pay him for a year.
The thing that struck me was not that the housing system in Rome is collapsing, nor that this guy was a former security guard that is now unemployed, nor that he “lost” his home.
It is that his employer failed to pay him for a year!
This is something that seems quite common here, in Italy.
In the UK, I only heard about this happening (for an extended period of time) for one person. Here, I’ve heard about it often. It seems a common thing.
Of course, this has all to do with cashflow management – and how good or bad the managers are at managing it.
It’s not helped by the fact that Italian government and council agencies still find it acceptable to pay companies late – more than 90 days – and yet those same agencies demand money immediately or, even, (from what I understand) in the case of VAT (IVA, here), up front! But it’s not only government and council agencies.
I can’t imagine continuing to work somewhere when I wasn’t paid – for a whole year!
It’s not even as if wages here are so huge. In fact, as I’ve mentioned before now, I still can’t quite understand how this country functions with wages set so low.
As usual, the solution to this (and most problems here), is a change in thinking. A change that seems unlikely to come any time soon.
I remember one of my “contracts” here when I was teaching. I did some work that was funded through the EU, providing cut-price lessons to companies in Italy. The pay for me was quite high (compared to most English teaching “jobs”) and the funding actually came through charity organisations. Since I did a number of these contracts, I had different contracts with different charity agencies.
All of them were really good – except one. The one that was terrible was the “Catholic” one. For this one, I really had to fight for my money. The others paid me almost as soon as the courses were complete. This one kept me hanging on for a couple of months. Eventually, I went to their headquarters. I was told that the person who could sign the cheque was not there right now. I said I would wait. They told me that it was not a good idea to wait as they didn’t know when he would come in but they would make sure that he signed the cheque as soon as he came in and I should come back the next day.
I went back the next day. Apparently, for one reason or another, he hadn’t signed the cheque. And he wasn’t there right now but they would get it done today and I could come back tomorrow. I explained that that wasn’t good enough and that I wasn’t trekking all the way across town again.
I said I would wait.
They didn’t want that but they thought that I would give up and go after an hour or so. They had no idea who they were dealing with. I waited for an hour and a half to two hours.
Suddenly I was called to the desk as somehow, miraculously, they had the cheque! This was strange, as no one had entered the building since I had arrived, apart from people going to the desk and then leaving!!!! I thanked them but told them that I would never do work for them again. I was shocked at the time as I never expected a Catholic charity to be lying bastards.
Catholic charities, it seems, are the worst for paying their debts! So it seems justified (in a justice sense) that the Catholic Church should suffer the homeless people who may have even been made homeless by their failure to pay the company for which poor Luca worked. Even if it wasn’t a Catholic charity directly, you can be certain they were involved somewhere down the line. They are, after all, as prolific here as the “Mafia”. And, to be honest, I would put them both in the same category of organisation.
The full link to the article is here
