Uffizi Staff Meeting Delayed opening until 10:15 AM!

My husband and I experienced exactly the same situation and timing on our first trip to Florence in 2010 - later in the day we found out that the "staff meeting" was a labour disruption - a small sitdown strike - apparently a staff member was disciplined early in the morning and other staffers didn't like it so they "sat down" - It was cleared up by 10:30 - however our visit was extremely crowded - those booked tours were racing through the galleries - so we slowed down and waited - it cleared a little by noon. Since then we have visited with a FC and without with no problems. We are due to visit in early November so hope fully everyone will be "happy".

Very interesting-welcome to Italy, eh? I have to say I do admire the European mindset of strikes when things at the office are not copacetic. It sounds like a reservation would normally trump Firenze Card, good to know. Always exciting!

Wow this is a bit ridiculous. I had the exact same experience last week!

The government is nine months late in paying extra hours requested to the staff. No wonder the staff goes on meeting.

This happened to me at the Academia in 2008. As soon as I saw the sign on the door "staff meeting" I knew what it was. I'd often heard the expression "Italian strike" here in Israel, but didn't realize until that moment why it was called that here. It was simultaneously at the Uffizi - news filtered among the waiting crowd of tourists.

Even though there was no Firenze Card back then, the long line of reservation holders still had to wait an hour to get in because the tour groups took precedence.

Just to explain: workers have a right to have what you call a "staff meeting". Each union has its quota of meeting hours during working time. Meetings cannot be called suddenly, the employer must know in advance (the staff meeting at Colosseo that yesterday made a scandal had been announced and authorized a week in advance; the museum administration simply ignored possible consequences). Times and modes of meeting may be negotiated by unions and employers - for example, the employer may ask the meeting to be moved to another time, still within working hours. A meeting is not a strike, that is usually longer and involves wages being withheld.
No wonder if Uffizi and Accademia go on meeting or strike at the same time, they are the same administration.

Yesterday meetings were called at a lot of museums as under a relatively recent agreement museum workers are asked to work longer hours, but the payment of extra hours has been ping-ponged between different government department and is now nine months or more late. Government has said they will issue a decree to deal with strikes in museums, but they should better pay workers their due wages on time.

I wish Italy could apply the Swiss system, where strikes, while allowed, are never called but employers have the duty to sit down with unions and work out the differences. As employers in Italy never deal matters seriously (for example, I am still waiting for a revision of the general contract for my field of employment, that was formally due in 2002), I would prefer unions to switch to French-style strikes, where you declare when it begins and it ends only when an agreement is reached, be it in two or ten or twenty days. The paradox of Italian strikes is that they are mostly ineffective.

Interesting, thanks for the clarification.

"The paradox of Italian strikes is that they are mostly ineffective."

That was my thought. If you're always having to strike, then clearly strikes aren't working.

Welcome to Italy!

The Prime Minister vehemently complained about these strikes at the Colosseum by these workers who want to be paid for their overtime that hasn't been paid for months.

Italy could do like in America.

In America employers simply call their employees "Exempt" ('from overtime law') and require them to work overtime without extra pay at all and it's perfectly legal.

They could also make it much easier for Italians to incur credit card debt like here in America. Once workers owe thousands of euros on their credit cards no way will they able to afford to strike.

Italians strike a lot because they have no debts. Houses must be paid in 15 years. Down payment at least 50%. Credit cards must be paid in full monthly (actually the bank takes it out of your checking account without even asking and they don't even give you a credit card if you don't have a checking account with the issuing bank).

In America they have figured out how to eliminate workers' strikes: "I owe, I owe, and off to work I go!"

As someone who has worked in the Human Resource field for close to 20 years, I can tell you that employers in the U.S. cannot simply designate their employees as exempt and simply avoid paying them overtime. There are various state and federal laws that govern what types of positions can qualify as exempt. The most well-known law is the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

You are right Steve.

The law is crystal clear and there is no chance for misinterpretation.
There is no chance employers could push the envelope under the excuse of the "Administrative Exemption".

As an audit manager for 30 years I can't even count the instances the Dept of Labor has fined employers I worked for for pushing the envelope. All 500 fortune companies.

Houses must be paid in 15 years. Down payment at least 50%. Credit
cards must be paid in full monthly (actually the bank takes it out of
your checking account without even asking and they don't even give you
a credit card if you don't have a checking account with the issuing
bank).

That's really interesting, Roberto. It must take a long time for people to be able to save enough to afford a home?

Paying large down payments for houses, with short mortgages, is one reason for long engagements in Italy, and adult children living at home until they marry - gives them time to save for the house.

Houses must be paid in 15 years.

To tell the truth Roberto, I do not know almost anyone who could pay for their house in less than 20/25 years.
Those few who could obtain a 15 years long mortgage could also give their parents' first or second house as a guarantee for the Bank.

It was a trap, the local unions fell for it and now the national ones will pay. They don't get that it's not a matter of being right or wrong, anymore. It's a matter of storytelling, of labels. They have been working overtime without pay for months, they organized the meetings according the law and now everybody hates them. Wow... Renzi is good, isn't he?!

That was my thought. If you're always having to strike, then clearly strikes aren't working.

Of course strikes in the public sector don't work: every time they strike they don't get paid and their counterpart's budget improves.

Since we've migrated to housing discussion...

I looked at places to buy in every city we visited this month, and all of them had stuff in the 100k - 500k euro range. You don't get a lot for 100k, but at least you have the option. Good luck finding something for less than $350k USD where I live. I was really jealous :(

Stephen, you might not be considering that the salaries are considerably lower in the cities you were than where you live in California. Sure €100,000 may not sound like a lot to you, but it might be a LOT more in proportion to someone's earning power and therefore equally out of reach.

There's help on the way, the new head of the museum will not be an Italian.

http://www.uffizi.org/2146-eike-schmidt-selected-as-new-director-of-uffizi-gallery/

Thank you, Tom, I am so relieved.

And the Accademia is also getting a German director. According to the New York Times it's a deliberate attempt to change the museums' culture and improve the guest experience.

Finally.

Volkswagen CEO will soon become the director of all Italian museums.

Italy needs some German leadership to teach the Italians some honest and ethical business practices.

Here's the New York Times article http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/artsbeat/2015/08/18/german-art-historian-to-direct-uffizi-gallery-in-italy/?referrer=

Personally my Uffizi and Accademia experiences were excellent.

Eike has done a great job with our own Minneapolis Institute of Art so he's an excellent choice for the Uffizi. Our loss, though.