Massimiliano De Conca is an Italian teacher and union leader active in the education sector within the FLC CGIL. Throughout his career, he has held union representative roles at both the local and national levels, focusing in particular on collective bargaining, working conditions for school staff, and educational policies. His experience combines teaching with union representation, with a strong commitment to issues related to public education and workers’ rights.
Interviewer: So, this interview is for the Interface project I told you about, and the questions are mainly about your involvement as a trade unionist in education.
First of all, how did it start? If you want, tell me when you began engaging in this area, and then how your activity changed and the difficulties you faced, especially during Covid.
Interviewee: Ok, fine. Just talk freely, I’ll transcribe and clean it up later.
BEGINNINGS OF TRADE UNION WORK
Interviewee: So, how did it start? It started almost as a game, in the sense that I was a trade union representative in my school.
I’ve been a teacher since 2001. With the RSU elections in 2003–2004 I became an RSU representative and started working on the school contract.
At the same time, I was coming from a completely different world: I was doing a PhD, involved in university projects.
Philology. Romance philology. Troubadour linguistics, so the Middle Ages, a completely different world.
Then with the 1999 competitive exam I became a teacher, and gradually, out of curiosity and necessity, I started learning that contracts exist, that RSUs exist, that trade unions exist.
I’ve always had a left-wing political background, even though I was never a member of any political party.
Then, by working with colleagues and the FLC CGIL structure in Mantua, I was asked to help at a local level, first as a volunteer, then within the leadership group.
In 2014 I became secretary in Mantua. Then I had the opportunity to collaborate at the national level, then I went back to Lombardy, and so on.
It’s not really a career path: there is no real “career” here.
Let’s say I was needed: first at provincial level, then I was asked to go to Rome to work with the national structure, because as a philologist I can read texts properly.
Interviewer: Right, you see, it turns out it’s useful.
Interviewee: Yes, it becomes useful at some point.
I moved to Rome for four years, then I was asked to return to Lombardy because there was a change in leadership, and I was offered this role.
CHANGES IN UNION WORK
Interviewer: How has your work changed over time?
Interviewee: It has changed a lot.
Right now I’ve just come out of a four-hour assembly on the contract renewal and the reform of technical schools, with more than two thousand people connected.
Today, territorial and provincial assemblies—especially after Covid—often have much smaller numbers: twenty, twenty-five people.
Except for big cities like Milan or Monza, where there are more staff and more union demands, elsewhere participation is quite low.
Because after Covid, participation has basically become online.
Interviewer: So we’ve gone back to physical participation?
Interviewee: No, it’s hard to go back to in-person participation.
Even when it concerns very important issues, like school-level contracts, people often ask for a remote link.
In just a few years we’ve gone from paper membership cards sent by post…
When I first worked in the union, I used to print membership cards, put them in envelopes, stick stamps, write addresses…
Now the membership card is digital: you open an app and it’s there.
Interviewer: So that’s a good thing, I suppose?
Interviewee: A good thing, yes, although there are nostalgic people like me who still love the paper card.
ONLINE PARTICIPATION
Interviewee: The issue is that online participation is not the same thing.
You can be connected but doing something else, keeping the camera off, only partially following.
Like all of us: you keep it in the background because only part of it interests you.
This reduces participation and engagement.
Even in schools, it happens: faculty meetings with 200–300 teachers often have to be held online because of lack of space.
Technology is an opportunity, but it must be used properly.
If I need a quick meeting, it’s fine, but if I need to discuss important issues, it should be in person.
However, not all schools are equipped.
With schools of 2,000–2,500 students you need both space and time to gather everyone.
RELATIONSHIP WITH MEMBERS
Interviewer: Has your relationship with members changed as well?
Interviewee: Yes.
There is now an expectation of immediate responses that didn’t exist before.
I remember in 2018 we negotiated the right to disconnect, but for ourselves in the union, because people constantly message us.
There is this idea that the union should respond like a chatbot.
Before, there were phone calls: “I’ll get back to you, we’ll talk about it.”
Now there is constant, immediate connectivity.
Yes, we’ve been turned into something like ChatGPT.
Interviewer: Yes, exactly.
Interviewee: Some are even trying to structure it that way.
I use tools like NotebookLM because it gives precise references to sources, which is useful for contracts.
Because interpretation can sometimes drift away from the literal text, and you need to know exactly where something is written.
PRESSURE AND DEADLINES
Interviewee: In general, pressure on timing has increased a lot.
Deadlines are now digital, through PEC emails and online platforms, and they expire at 23:59 on the set day.
Often including weekends and holidays.
The Ministry says: “you can do it from home anyway.”
But this removes human time.
There is more anxiety, more urgency, constant pressure.
SCHOOL AND COVID
Interviewer: And in schools, with Covid?
Interviewee: Covid accelerated processes that were already underway.
It’s not just about digitising lessons—that already existed with concept maps and summaries.
The real change is in communication and attention.
Students now have very short attention spans, influenced by social media.
During Covid, multitasking became normal: multiple devices at the same time.