In time of economic crisis, public education institutions are affected by government policies characterized by budget cuts and neoliberal private-oriented reforms in many European countries. In reaction to this, in the last years, a social movement has arisen to defend public school and university. Differently from other countries, in Italy this movement has involved not only students, but precarious and open-ended researchers as well. These “knowledge workers” , especially the latter, triggered a mobilization against the bill proposed by Gelmini (Minister of University) during the Spring 2010, declaring themselves “unavailable”, i.e. refusing to take on teaching assignments (since they are not legally obliged to teach, they are not on strike). This protest became visible to the public in the Fall, when the researchers occupied the roofs of the Universities, while the students demonstrated climbing on monuments and blocking the cities. Although the law has been approved in December, the mobilization still continues. Not only the defense of public University and students and workers’ rights are at stake, but the role of research and knowledge within the society, and the way in which they are produced and transmitted. As a consequence, alternative proposals of university reform have emerged from the movement. This paper aims at analyzing the researchers movement on the basis of participant observation, the analysis of documents and newspapers, and in-depth interviews to key-informants, highlighting the network organizational patterns, the framing process, the repertoire of action and its interactions with public institutions and other social movement organizations.
