Standing Army

Jailing idle bureaucrats

Never before had Italy's bureaucracy seemed so diligent, so strangely un-Italian. Government offices were positively jammed with civil servants, so many, in fact, that there was not enough furniture--or enough work--to go around. One frustrated supervisor in the general post office in Rome finally informed his standing army of employees: "Tomorrow everyone will have a chair and a desk. For too many years, we've been working with too few people. Now everything has changed."

Indeed it has. Historically, Italian bureaucrats have given special meaning to the old expression dolce far niente (it is pleasant to do nothing). Absenteeism was rampant, feigned illness a way of life. In many cases, civil servants who did show up for work arrived late and left early.

Enter an anonymous postal inspector who recently spot-checked the mail facilities at Rome's Fiumicino Airport, one of the more glacial arms of Italy's infamous postal service. The inspector found only four of the office's 49 workers on the job. As it happened, his report landed on the desk of Luciano Infelisi, a crusading magistrate, who was appalled by the absenteeism. Infelisi began to issue warrants, and he demanded that 20 ministries and state agencies hand over the names of employees with high absenteeism records. Before Italy's 3.8 million civil servants could say "Per Bacco! What's going on?" they were being upbraided, and some were even led away to jail in handcuffs.

First to go was Maria Ferraguto, 50, who had won bonuses for hard work on her climb to the job of a personnel director in a Rome post office. She was charged with aggravated and continuous fraud against the state, a felony that carries a penalty of up to three years in jail and up to $318 in fines. Her alleged crime: consistently checking in to her office at 11 a.m. and leaving at 1 p.m., thus working only two of the six daily hours required. Alessandro Vigneri, 29, police claim, should have been handling baggage at Fiumicino Airport instead of working in his own elegant hi-fi store in nearby Ostia, when the cops showed up to woof and tweet.

The arrests are just beginning. Ten other government employees in Rome have been put behind bars, and another 278 government employees have been informed that they are under investigation, as are 90 doctors who signed suspect medical certificates.

Can Infelisi and his fellow crusaders reverse history? Many Italians hope so. But Milan's Corriere della Sera may have sounded the most realistic note. "When the dust has settled," the newspaper cynically predicted, "everything will be the same as before."

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