Meet the Longford Man fighting for Lecturer Equality in Italy

Longford man Henry Rodgers, who recently penned an open letter to President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen on the EU’s longest-running discrimination case, is being supported by fellow Longford man and MEP Ciaran Mullooly.

The campaigner is being backed by the Lanesboro native and his political advisor, Pat O'Rourke, an old St Mel's classmate, to end what has been described as 'decades-long discrimination against foreign-language lecturers'.

Henry is a married father of one who has lived in Italy for 37 years and he has campaigned tirelessly for decades for fairness and equality for non-national lecturers who are European Union citizens.

The Longford town native teaches English at "la Sapienza University of Rome.

Henry has campaigned with others on the issue that foreign lecturers such as him receive significantly less pay and have less rights when it comes to contracts compared to Italian lecturers. 

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The European Commission referred Italy to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in July 2023 for its persistent discrimination against foreign lecturers working in Italian universities.

Henry explained the discrimination has continued in defiance of four clear-cut sentences of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the first of which was handed down in 1989.

The campaign is referred to as '‘Lettori’ (or Teachers – the longest- running breach of the freedom- of-movement provision of the treaty on record.

Henry said his own active involvement in the campaign dates back to 1996 and his lobbying of Irish politicians to ask the European Commission to intervene against Italy for non- implementation of the Allué case law of the CJEU.

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The European Commission has now opened an infringement case against Italy for persistent discrimination against non-national university teachers.

However, Henry said the Italians continue to blatantly ignore the rulings.

"The first thing is if you win in the court it should be automatic and we have had to go four times because they misinterpret the ruling so so you have to go back for successive refinements of the ruling all the time," he said. "Even since the last ruling they have introduced four different pieces of legislation, some of them mutually contradictory, like to resolve it, I really don't know why they are being so intransigent."

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) first found for Spanish woman Pilar Allué on 30 May 1989 in her reference for a preliminary ruling case against her employer, Università Degli Studi di Venezia.

A misreading of that Italian ruling led her to have recourse to the Court for a second time and in 1993 it ruled in her favour again.

Henry insisted her victory should have ended the discrimination against Lettori, but instead it marked the start of what is edging closer to a four decades campaign.

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"There was supposed to be fines and that was the whole thing in my letter to von der Leyen about how the confidentiality requirement in infringement proceedings [is an issue]," he said. "In other words if the European Commission sues a member state all the exchanges between them are confidential, which has cost us very dearly."

Henry insisted the European Commission is supposed to be "doing it on our behalf" but the complainant has no right to see the depositions such as what the defendant is saying, which is the total opposite of the normal lawyer-client relationship.

"What happens is the Commission takes an infringement case, that's the first stage, if they win and the member state doesn't comply, they take a thing called an enforcement case where they ask the court to impose fines."

Henry stated the fines come to €310,000 per day, which would have ended the discrimination immediately, but what happened is Italy introduced a "last minute law providing for the payments of the settlements" due.

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"The court said that law is fine that's in conformity with European law but the next question that had to be answered before the fines could be imposed was were the correct settlements paid?," he said. "Italy said they were but because we couldn't see

Italy's depositions we didn't get the chance to put in the counter evidence and say 'No they weren't'.

Despite the setbacks, Henry said he is now "more hopeful than ever before" due to the support from MEP Mr Mullooly, who has submitted a parliamentary question to the European Parliament, and his team.