The Times They Are A-Changin'

A friend of mine who works in a pub here in Rome has always joked about working under the table and being of questionable legal status here in Italy, well, he doesn't find it all that funny any longer. Due to something that happened in an area near his pub things are changing quickly, here's a link to the story. Now, whether or not these changes will remain is another thing but for now they are reacting in this particular fashion.

Last Saturday at about 10p.m. about ten of the military police came into the pub where my friend works. They started asking all the employees for their documents, passports, and they wanted to see work contracts for all the employees. My friend calmly left from behind the bar, walked right past the policeman with the clipboard and went straight to the bathroom, flipped his shirt inside out and went and sat with some of the students he knows. He stuck around for a bit but then decided to head out to a bar where some friends work and wait for someone to send him a message that the coast was "clear" and he could return to work. After a bit over an hour, someone sent him a message that the police had left and that it was safe to come back.

I can remember the days of Outback Steakhouse when the firemen would come in to check the extinguishers and other things and all the Mexicans would bolt out thinking they were immigration! This must have been how my friend felt Saturday night!

The next night went off without a hitch but now management is really worried and he may be out of work very soon. Basically, everyone that works in this pub is illegal including a few of the Italians and the other EU citizens. They are illegal because they do not have a proper working contract and in Italy, you must have a contract to work or else you're working "in the black". It's rather easy to give a contract to Italians and other EU citizens but basically impossible for an American living in Italy. The reason they don't do it is to avoid paying taxes on each and every employee. I can't really blame them because the tax rate here is astronomical compared to the States.

Without this source of income, my friend will have to begin looking elsewhere for work very soon and it probably won't be in Italy.