The article in the url below was one of the best stories that I read over the break:
"At 64, Alfredo Lupi, a janitor at a factory in Graffignana, an industrial town southeast of Milan, was less than three years away from his retirement, a threshold that was at once incredibly close but impossibly far. A cognitive impairment that he had suffered from almost since birth was making his job more difficult by the day. The condition was too debilitating for him to work without discomfort, but quitting would have been hard to afford without a pension. That's where his co-workers came in."
Of course, the collegiality among employees was moving:
"Technically, his colleagues gave him … vacation days. They had transferred some of their own allotment — some gave more days, some gave less, but all gave something. That allowed him to stop working, but meant he could remain on the books at the Senna Inox factory and collect a salary until he reached the retirement age of 67."
Apparently, this idea of donating vacation days is a 'thing' in Italy:
"In recent years, the story of a mother who was given the equivalent of three years to take care of her disabled son, as well as tales of time-off donated to hospital workers who have young children and no time to spend with them, have made headlines in Italy. But Mr. Lupi's case was unusual because all 50 of his colleagues pitched in, collecting 20 months worth of working days."
But, the reaction of the employer (Senna Inox), a family-run firm, to the situation was also inspiring because the employees had not donated sufficient time to cover all of the days before his official retirement:
"Still, for all of their generosity, the employees hadn't collected enough time, but Senna Inox rounded things off by agreeing to pay him for the remaining year he would need to reach retirement age."
Clearly, the company understands the value of its employees as its most important stakeholder:
"'You might see it as a big present, but we see it as an investment in solidarity,' said Pietro Senna, one of the four brothers who run the factory founded by their grandfather in 1950. 'We are not depriving ourselves of anything, quite the opposite.'"
As a result:
"Mr. Senna said that the vast majority of their employees at the factory, which designs and produces equipment for the pharmaceutical and food production industry, work there for their entire careers."
Have a good weekend.
David
David Chandler
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A Janitor Was Struggling, So His Colleagues Donated Toward an Early Retirement
By Gaia Pianigiani
December 27, 2021
The New York Times
Late Edition – Final
A6
