A total of 49 employees of the Vatican Museums have started a legal dispute over job conditions and workplace safety.
The staff, many of whom are custodians, have filed a class-action complaint with Pope Francis’s administration and claim they are treated as “commodities”, according to a report in Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
The Vatican Museums display works from the Catholic Church’s collection and the papacy throughout the centuries. The museums contain around 70,000 works including Roman sculptures and Renaissance art, as well as Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel.
The 49 staff have sent a petition to the Vatican’s governorate alleging that its labour rules “undermine each worker’s dignity and health”, the Guardian reports.
Dated April 23, the complaint cites overtime hours paid at lower rates and insufficient health and safety provisions.
Laura Sgrò, the lawyer representing the workers, said: “They have tried so many times through individual petitions to resolve this situation.
“So this move is quite extreme. After many years of discussion, this is the first class action. We have 49 people now but I think this number will increase over the next few days.”
She added: “This is not a courteous letter but the formal opening of a procedure… If the conciliation goes badly then we go to court.”
Staff claim they are treated as “commodities”
Last year, the Vatican Museums returned three fragments of the 2,500-year-old Parthenon marbles to Greece following an announcement by Pope Francis.
The fragments include a head of a horse, a head of a boy and a bearded male head. They had been in the Vatican’s collection since the 19th century.
In a statement, the Vatican said the pope was returning the marbles as a “donation” and “a concrete sign of his sincere desire to follow in the ecumenical path of truth”.
The Vatican Museums attracted nearly 7 million visitors in 2023.
Images courtesy of Vatican Museums
