Do you know of a research institution where scientists have to badge in and out ?
Do you think a scientist should badge in and out ?
Me, NO !
The following is a collection of semi-humorous material about (not) badging.
Apologies since most of such material is in Italian.
- a quotation from Henri Poincare'
(in Postscript
and ASCII form;
Original French and translation into Italian)
about the working habit of scientists. I read this when I was 19 and
preparing my high school leaving examination. It had some, though little,
part in confirming my inclinations towards a scientific career.
- a quotation
from Alessandro Manzoni, adapted by myself, indicating what we should
do about the circulars issued by bureaucrats (ignore them !)
- a Postscript file
with the "black sheep cards" which we may wear (the black sheeps are
those researchers like me who refuse to badge)
- the paraphrasis of a joke poem by
Giuseppe Giusti "La guigliottina a vapore" adapted to our case.
-
and finally a serious document, i.e. the
Manifest of the Black Sheep
sent illo tempore to our Director pro tempore by us.
-
all the above was last updated in May 2007 ... now in April 2019 I add some
more recent (and all serious) links.
- Some slides
by an expert of labour law (the part against badging after slide 12) explaining
why badging is not required by the current collective labour agreements.
Essentially the (currently valid) labour agreement of 1998-2001 (signed in 2002)
at Art. 58 states that "researchers enjoy autonomous determination of their
working time", which should be self-certified as being no less than
an average of 36 hours per week in a 3-month term.
- an ANPRI newsletter from 2016
citing various court rulings against the application of mechanical or
electronical badging to research staff.
- in particular the ruling of the Bologna court is reported
here.
- another ANPRI newsletter from 2018
which among others notes that the only change in the labour agreement of 2016-2018
to previous Art. 58 extends the period to compute the average of
36 hours per week in a 4-month term.
- a recent page in a CNR blog
citing among other a court ruling from 2015 stating the exclusion of disciplinary
regu;ations about working time and its control.
- Finally a voice from the past from an INFN blog
reporting the opinion of some foreign scientists, including some Nobel laureates,
on the matter. I report here some verbatim quotations:
- "Can you see Enrico Fermi punching a time clock? There are effective ways
to measure scientific productivity; times clocks are not the way.
" (Leon M. Lederman)
- "This was tried once at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory and led to a
collapse of morale and general rebellion, and after a few weeks this
program was terminated. Scientists do their work because it interests
them, not because of any bureaucratic requirements on how they spend their
time." (Steven Weinberg)
- "... policy regarding time reporting for research scientists. I find this
policy to be absurd, insulting to researchers, and entirely unnecessary.
In general, it is my experience that research scientists ...
spend a great deal more than the nominal 40 hours
per week on their research activities." (Sheldon Lee Glashow)
- To these I may add the quote from the then
INFN President
to ARAN from the same 1998
(original Italian in the Manifest quoted above):
"It is my firm convinction that formal control of working time is not
functional to the organization and working ways in research and is a practice
unknown in foreign and international research institutions, with which our
research staff are in constant contact."
- Finally, one can find technical details on the current "experimental" time reporting software
EPAS (under the tab "Documentazioni").
sax.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/WWW/Personal/badge.html
:: original creation 2019 apr 29 15:16:26 CEST ::
last edit 2019 Apr 29 15:16:26 CEST