The occasion arose from tensions at the bargaining table over the regulation of incentives for technical positions: summoned by management, he deserted. But there's much more to the harsh joint statement against Arnas Brotzu signed by the CISL Fd, CGIL Fp, Uil Fp, and FIALS unions: a "political" stance that targets the management of Sardinia's leading hospital and denounces a situation experienced "behind the proclamations, behind the press conferences, behind the public narrative of excellence."
The skipped table
The comparison on incentives, first of all: Carlo Marras, Alessandro Floris
Fabio Sanna and Paolo Cugliara (in order of initials), along with several members of the RSU, didn't even sit down at the bargaining table: "The conditions weren't right to do so," they say, "without diplomatic mediation, which at this time would simply be another form of complicity with those who are treating this company's workers as adjustment variables."
The documentation to be discussed "arrived less than nine hours before the meeting, not including overnight hours. Less than nine hours to analyze a text that touches on rights, organizational balance, wages, and responsibilities. It's not an oversight. Nor is it a matter of timing. It's a method. And it's a method that clearly communicates the weight given to discussions with workers' representatives—and, through us, with the workers themselves: we refuse to lend our presence as formal cover for decisions already written."
According to the union representatives, "For eleven months this company has been constructing an external narrative while the internal reality tells a completely different story. Eleven months during which the staff continued to work—in the wards, in the operating rooms, in the laboratories, in the offices—without receiving the compensation already accrued under the current regulations. Eleven months of postponed meetings, of requests that went unanswered, of commitments not translated into consequent actions. Eleven months during which management found the time and the words for everything except giving its workers what they were already owed."
Then, suddenly, the meeting was called to discuss the new regulations, "without explaining why. Without explaining what didn't work in the previous one and why the due amount wasn't being paid. Without having had time to understand what changes and to whose advantage." In fact, the proposal was briefly reviewed. The unions' comment? "The proposal presented narrows the scope of incentives, changes the relationship between roles and responsibilities, and does so at a time when staffing is already stretched to the limit. Staff shortages, chronic organizational issues, and growing surgical waiting lists. In this context, the decision was made to modify the structure of technical functions with a text delivered just hours after the meeting. This isn't management. This is pressure."
The lunge
Then comes the qualitative leap in the attack on Brotzu's management. The results claimed in transplants, surgical activity, and the response to the healthcare needs of an entire region "are the concrete, daily, silent product of a supply chain of thousands of professionals. Nurses, technicians, operators, doctors, administrators. And the term supply chain is not used by chance. People who have built, with skill and sacrifice, the reputation that is now communicated, recounted, and exhibited. That reputation belongs to them. It is made of their hard work." As if to say: no one should take credit they don't deserve. Which, in fact, creates the condition whereby the workers themselves "have not received what they are entitled to for eleven months. And we're not just talking about incentives for technical roles. We're talking about resources allocated to staff that have not been disbursed on time. We're talking about contractual provisions established by agreements and current legislation that have remained unimplemented because there has been virtually no discussion. They are summoned through their representatives with less than a night's notice to discuss changes that directly affect them. They are faced with urgent decisions in the absence of any shared investigation. Behind the proclamations, behind the press conferences, behind the public narrative of excellence, lies this reality. And it is unacceptable.
The escape
And there's a further consequence: professionals are leaving. The unions speak of "dozens of resignations concentrated in a short period of time, involving not only nurses but also technical and administrative staff. This isn't a blip. It's the tip of an iceberg that has long signaled a profound malaise, ignored for too long or addressed with partial and belated interventions." It's not just a question of money, according to the statement: "It's about unequal treatment compared to other healthcare organizations, unequal growth opportunities, and management dynamics that fail to retain, value, and professionally develop those who provide care to citizens every day. Healthcare, technical, and administrative staff: without them, no healthcare system can sustain itself, and no institutional statement makes sense." The response has come with fixed-term hiring that "doesn't stem the drain: they accept it, they normalize it. Training staff only to then lose them to other healthcare organizations is a waste of public resources."
The requests
The trade unions ask:
- Immediate liquidation of all accrued claims under the current regulations
- Suspension of any process on the new regulation until the previous issues have been resolved
- Real and documented times for the analysis of each proposed modification
- A structured comparison, with formal documents and verifiable commitments, on the organizational implications
- A serious, non-emergency plan to combat staff loss, starting with stabilization and culminating in economic and professional development.
- Respect for industrial relations as a non-negotiable condition, not as an occasional concession